


Starcrossed

by aundreaascencio (aundreathewriter)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Betrayal, Character Death, Enemy Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Force Visions, Good versus Evil, Guilt, Jedi, Jedi Code, Jedi baby daddy, Love, Older Man/Younger Woman, Platonic Romance, Prophecy, Revenge, Romance, Sith, Sith Code, Tragedy, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, droid, runaway princess, the chosen one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-16 09:02:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 57,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12339597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aundreathewriter/pseuds/aundreaascencio
Summary: As a Jedi Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi is torn between his inevitable attachments, and his duty to the Jedi Order. Haunted by his fatal duel with Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan escapes to Polis Massa in an attempt to save Padme and her unborn children, only to be mysteriously drawn in by  Padme's medical overseer; a Jeotian runaway with darker ties, hiding on the medical base to escape her destiny. Driven by visions from the Force, Obi-Wan begins his investigation of the mystery woman and her past, hoping to piece together and stop the prophecy of the rumored "Sith Chosen one".In the battle between light and darkness, opposites collide. But in the end, only one can survive.Can a Jedi really know love, or will his past repeat itself in ultimate tragedy?





	1. The Jedi Kenobi

Outer Rim Territory

POLIS MASSA Astroid Base

Medical Facility

Before the fall of the Galactic Republic, and the rise of an Empire across the galaxy, I had never heard of the name Obi-Wan Kenobi, and my knowledge of the Jedi Order was painfully limited.

On my home world...a certain volcanic moon in the Outer Rim Territory...we rarely dealt with Jedi, and when we did, the negotiations were straightforward and to the point. Just long enough to keep one side from stepping too hard on the other's toes.

We were an ally to the Republic, and agreed to protect their interests in the Outer Rim, if they protected ours in the Senate.

Usually that involved two things. Legislation and Taxes.

Our legislative agreements were based on letting us have our own laws, including those that were debated in Coruscant. We were also given tax leniency on our most profitable exports, such as diamonds and other volcanic minerals, like aluminum ore and gold. Since most of the precious minerals found in the galaxy could be mined in the volcanoes surrounding my world, we were a territory whose bad side the Senate didn't want to be on.

We agreed to remain a strong Republic military ally in the Outer Rim, and the Republic agreed to contract us as their top contributor for mineral production.

It was good business.

Before the rise of the Empire, my world was one of the richest territories in the Outer Rim.

And for the most part, we were out of the direct reach of the Republic when it came to more controversial business contracts dealt under the radar, like secretly exporting goods to parties the Senate wouldn't approved of.

In a way, that's how I ended up on Polis Massa.

A good deal gone really bad.

And after it, I needed a place to hide. A place where no one would recognize my face. Where they wouldn't think twice about the alias I gave them, or my inexperience with "practical" jobs that fell outside my original duties on my home world. A place where they wouldn't ask too many questions about what those "duties" were, as long as I could get the work done wherever they put me.

The Kallidah Archaeological Research Base was just that kind of place.

The inhabitants of the asteroid belt believed Polis Massa was actually a planet at one time, and after some mysterious cataclysm, the planet was destroyed and rearranged itself into an asteroid belt. The base was established to research the cause behind the planet's death, and after generations of scientific study, there were still no leads.

The work was steady, and no one would ever bother to invade the territory in search of...well, me...because no one would think twice about a back-galaxy asteroid belt built on the hopes and dreams of a dead-end "science project".

So for a girl like me, it was the perfect way to blend in, but only if I could make myself look like everyone else, and pick up practical skills like chemistry and pharmacology. Once I got my hands dirty with those, I marketed myself to the scientists at Polis Massa and they took me in.

I originally applied as an archaeological chemist, and was perfectly happy (and safe) working on the base for a standard year.

But then, without warning or election, the Sith regime swept the galaxy into darkness. And since the heart of the threat was far away in Coruscant, I had no idea how this change in leadership would eventually redefine my life, like the lives of so many others it had destroyed.

After Emperor Palpatine's "Order 66", and the ascent of the Galactic Empire, the base on Polis Massa became a safe haven for waves of Jedi refugees who had flocked to our medical facility for treatment and protection.

When I learned what happened to the Jedi Order and those who openly defied the new Imperial Rule, I couldn't hide behind fear anymore. I couldn't sit there and blend into the background with my medical beakers, ignoring what was going on around me.

I probably should have, but I didn't.

Despite the danger I knew I was putting myself in by stepping out into the open, something had to be done.

I couldn't exactly jump into a starfighter and take on Imperial forces in the skies, but I could give Palpatine the finger by committing other such treasonous acts in protest of his Empire.

I volunteered as a supply clerk on the base to help treat those who needed medical attention, and used my knowledge in chemistry and pharmacology to mix medicine and inventory supplies.

I was in deep concentration, mixing an antiseptic-viral hybrid solution for our inventory, when I caught a whiff of smoke and ash floating by me. It made me pause over the beakers I was working with, bringing back memories of my home world, and gutting me with a sharp pang of sadness and nostalgia.

If it hadn't been for that trigger, I probably wouldn't have glanced up at the man in sandy colored robes and a long brown cloak, storming through the hallway outside the transparent glass walls of my hospital unit. His face was coated in sweat and he looked exhausted, as if he'd just taken on an entire Sith army and barely escaped with his life. His tunic was covered in ash, and from where I sat, I could pick out charred little holes in the fabric where volcanic embers had ripped through his tunic.

His tunic was covered in ash, and from where I sat, I could pick out charred little holes in the fabric where volcanic embers had ripped through his tunic  
When I saw the unconscious woman he was cradling in his arms, I dropped the beaker in my hand and ran from my work table to meet him outside.

If I had known he was a Jedi, I might've thought twice about my actions as I approached him, but I didn't always recognize his kind. I wasn't thinking at all about who this man could be or how it would affect me in the near future. A Jedi wasn't my first assumption about him. After all, it wasn't just Jedi that we treated on the base, but any refugee trying to escape the overreaching grasp of unchecked political tyranny.

I myself was a refugee, though it wasn't the Empire I was running from. For me, there were more threatening things to be afraid of in the galaxy, and being captured and taken prisoner by the wrong people was one of them.

However, when I first laid eyes on Kenobi, I couldn't look the other way. There was something different about him. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was there. Something tragically beautiful. Like one who has seen and endured things that no one will ever begin to understand. Like you could learn something about endurance and understanding by studying those eyes.

And pain. There was a hint of that too. Well hidden within him, but I of all people could understand that unspoken language.

At first, it was my rebellious nature that drove me to him, but then I felt this strange kind of force pulling me closer. A magnetic attraction, like a lodestone snapping to metal, or a planet worshiping its sun. A calling. As if fate had been waiting around for this meeting to happen for me. The will of some star-crossed destiny encoded into my life.

And I was a slave to its purpose.

I met the captivating gaze of fate in the placid blue eyes of a quiet Jedi Knight gazing back at me.

I saw my own story in his eyes, and in the way he held this woman in his arms, who was too young and too beautiful to be in that position.

It was someone he cared about. Someone important.

I didn't know for sure what she meant to him, but I understood his pain. Because once upon a time, I'd been in the exact same situation he was in, and it too had been my pain.

I knew exactly what he felt as he raced toward me with the young woman in his arms.

Though I was fully aware of the unnecessary attention I'd be drawing to myself, I knew I had to do something to help him save this woman.

When I finally met him in the hall, the woman barely had a pulse, but I could still feel her life tapping faintly against my fingers.

"What happened?" I asked, my brown eyes gazing up into the grayish blue ones that now watched me intently.

"We were attacked while departing from the planet Mustafar."

I quickly inspected the swelling purple bruises that encircled her delicate porcelain neck, a definite sign of ruptured veins and internal bleeding. And to my horror, I recognized the outline of broad forceful finger marks imprinted into her skin, as if she'd been brutally strangled. What monster could do such a thing to her?

My eyes then scanned over her full, rounded abdomen, which indicated that time was now racing against me.

"How long has she been unconscious?" I asked him, but that's when I spotted the glinting hilt of a lightsaber hanging from his belt, which up to that point, had been hidden from me under his cloak.

Only then did I realize I was dealing with a Jedi, and what a huge mistake I had made by putting myself in his path.

I had to keep moving. I couldn't wait for his answer.

Not only was time against me to save the unborn child, but every moment I stood there under his studious gaze, my safety was put at greater risk.

Yet despite the fear he provoked in me, I would not abandon this patient, not in my hospital, not on my shift, and not when her life was hanging in the balance like this.

"She'll need oxygen administration immediately. Unit A2 is open," I told him, marching toward my hospital unit again as he followed me.

I sent out a page through comlink for the medical droids working my shift, and began turning up the oxygen concentration in the room.

"What's her name?" I asked, snatching my recently mixed stock of antishock ampules, stress tabs, and pain killer serum from my work desk.

"Padme," he answered calmly, though his keen eyes followed my every frantic move around the unit, especially all the vials and medical instruments I carried with me. I knew they made me look scary, so I tried to put his mind to ease.

"It's alright," I smiled reassuringly at him. "She's in good hands. I'll do everything in my power for her, Mr..."

"Kenobi," he replied, gently placing my patient onto the bed centered in the room. "Obi-Wan Kenobi."


	2. A Broken Heart

Because my life no longer had any meaning, saving Padme became my obsession. My new sense of purpose.

Something personal, in more ways than I care to mention now, and I was driven to find some cure, though she gave me no clues on where to start. We tried everything-every antidote, every test, and every procedure that science would suggest.

But Padme's suffering appeared beyond the reach of medicine. As far as science was concerned, she was completely medically sound, but yet her condition never improved. I failed to understand the reason why, and it frustrated me to point of insomnia. And her condition only got worse, as if she were deliberately fighting against every attempt we made to save her life. As if she had a death wish.

At some point, I began to suspect that Padme was working against me. That we had opposite goals in mind about the life I wanted to give back to her. As a patient, it was completely in her right to choose. But as her physician, it was also in my power to save her, and I would not let her give up on me...Not like this.

I spent hours with her at night, struggling to stay awake, and working outside of my regular duty hours to find some answers. I was scared that I'd miss something if I fell asleep, so I took melatonin suppressant tabs to keep me awake. It wasn't a permanent solution. Without a good night's rest, my own body would soon start to break down. Yet I had this gnawing, dark feeling that despite my best efforts, Padme wouldn't make me wait much longer anyway.

"I don't know your story," I told her one night, though I wasn't sure she could hear me. She made no signs of wakefulness. "Up to this point, I've only known Senator Padme Amidala by name. But I always imagined you to be strong. A fighter. Another example I could look up to. You still have a part to play, Amidala. You are stronger than this. Whatever it is that's put you here, fight it. Take your life back for the sake of those who still have faith in you. People who are determined to fight with you. Who would carry the burden of your absence long after you're gone, every day for the rest of their lives. I know it because I've done it, and every minute of absence is more painful than the last...Fight, Padme. Fight."

But her condition continued to deteriorate; whatever that condition was. I couldn't fix it. Of the hundreds of antidotes I could mix, and the millions of procedures I could apply, none of them would cure a broken heart. With all its grand advancements, science still had no authority in the realm of metaphysics.

I didn't know it back then, but I would come to realize that I was never meant to save Padme's life. She was meant to save mine.

If not for her being admitted into my care at Polis Massa, my life would be drastically different. Everything changed for me the minute they carried her in. When I thought I'd lost everything in my life, and that my existence would be flushed out in a vacuum on some deserted astroid base, Padme brought me hope. She brought me Obi-Wan.

But, of all people, I should've known that everything comes with its price. Though Padme allowed this Jedi to walk into my life, her own tragic story would become my story. Like passing an infection from one patient to the other. And as mentioned before, there's no cure for that disease.

Had I learned the lesson she was trying to teach me through her example, I might've been spared the plan that fate had in store for me. But I was so distracted by saving this woman, that I had no consideration for the future. Only the present.

Sometimes the things we aspire for are not meant to be, but open our eyes to the path that was destined for us. A certain Jedi once shared this wisdom with me...

However, at the the time that I could've used such wisdom, that certain Jedi stood at a carefully calculated distance away from me on the opposite side of the glass wall, making no sound to disturb me as he watched me work.

Kenobi wasn't the only Jedi to make contact with Polis Massa. Within hours of Padme's arrival, others soon joined him, including the Jedi Grand Master Yoda, and Bail Ograna of Alderaan. I knew him as Prince Bail Organa of Alderaan, but on the base he was addressed as Senator and Advisor of Militaristic Operations. Of what army, I didn't know yet. But I soon witnessed the beginnings of an Allied Resistance against the rising threat from Coruscant.

They were always watching Senator Amidala, deeply engaged in conversation about what was to be done with her, as if she had inspired a severe political crisis which changed the lives of millions. More and more, I began to wonder who this woman was and what she had done to find herself in this situation.

Like the others, Obi-Wan was ever vigilant.

Occasionally, I would look up from my work at Padme's side and meet his meditative gaze through the transparent walls between us. Sometimes, Kenobi would make a comment to Master Yoda, who would then turn his goblin-like green head toward me in deep consideration. Soon, I got the chilling impression that their conversation was no longer about my patient.

It put me on edge. I could never guess what a Jedi was thinking, but I had this aggravating feeling that they were looking right through me. Like they had the power to read minds and uncover all of my darkest secrets. The ones that they least of all should know about.

Finally, unable to stand it any longer, I decided to approach the Jedi directly and demand to know what he was plotting behind my back.

I walked out from the sterile brightly lit hospital room, until I reached the dark hallway that Obi-Wan Kenobi occupied.

"Is there something you wish to tell me, Master Jedi?" I asked him, once I met him face to face.

He didn't answer me immediately, taking a moment to gaze into my face, as if he hadn't expected me to confront him. But of course he had, because Jedi are rarely caught off guard. He had to have sensed me somehow through the Force...or however that thing works with them.

Then again, maybe it was just the first time he'd been close enough to really see me. The first opportunity that we both had to take in faces. On any other day at the base, we were usually running around carrying out our own duties and absorbed in our own thoughts. Faces went by like a blur as we passed them between corridors, and we hardly had any time to focus on one single person.

Yet by some miracle, the base was stable and quiet that night, giving us a moment of pause in our rapidly changing universe.

"How can I be of assistance to you, lieutenant?" he asked finally. "It's been 16 hours and you haven't stopped working. Even your droids have powered down for the night."

"I'm fine," I answered. "I've dealt with much worse before."

"I wouldn't doubt it," he said with a soft grin. "But since I can't sleep either, I felt obligated to do something productive."

"You've done enough for me, Master Jedi," I said. "Really. Get some rest."

"Please. Call me Obi-Wan," he reminded me again. Then went on more quietly, "I'm not a master here. Not anymore."

There was a little hint of something in his voice, and it sounded so familiar to me, but I couldn't immediately decide what it was. Guilt? Regret? Sadness?

And here I was thinking Jedi weren't human enough to be affected by their pasts.

I couldn't tell you what was haunting Master Kenobi. He never told me.

And I'll never know why, in that brief moment of vulnerability between us, he opened up to me. Why had he felt the inclination to help me at all?

"I know this must be difficult for you. It would be difficult for anyone to endure, including a Jedi," I told him, in another effort to convince him to take my advice. "It's alright to step away a moment and let someone else relieve you."

"I made a promise," Obi-Wan replied, the fatigue hanging on his voice as he glanced back at Padme through the glass walls. "I will not abandon her."

"That wasn't a suggestion, Master Kenobi. As your medical officer, I insist you get some rest," I said more firmly. "I don't need any more of you Jedi in my hospital unit. You're human like the rest of us, and you won't be of any use to Senator Amidala or us if you don't look after yourself."

He smiled again. "Well those are my orders," he said. "And does my chief commanding medical officer have a name?"

I hesitated, unsure of what name I could give to satisfy him, and yet not betray myself. Obi-Wan waited for my reply, and I knew the longer I took to answer him, the more suspicion I'd draw to myself. I had to say something.

"My name is..."

"Master Obi-Wan," Yoda's voice came from down the hall as he approached us with Bail Organa, and their attending droids, C3PO and R2D2. "Searching for you, we have been."

I finally remembered to breathe, realizing that I'd been saved from Obi-Wan's questioning just at the very last minute. I quickly made a run for it.

"Excuse me. I should get back to work," I bid Obi-Wan farewell with a parting smile. "It was a pleasure meeting you again, Master Kenobi."

I marched back for my hospital unit, but I felt his eyes follow me down the hall.

I didn't need a Jedi's instinct to know that this wasn't over for me. Why couldn't I have given him a name? Any name. After I had evaded his question, things would only get things worse for me. I would soon find that out the hard way. I may have won the battle, but Obi-Wan was still capable of claiming victory in the war.

I could not avoid him.

Once I was cleared from the corridor, Bail Organa, Obi-Wan, and Yoda stood attentively as the GH-7 medical droid supervising my unit hovered before them to give his report on Padme's status.

He could only tell them what he knew at this point, the reality that I had gradually come to accept. "Medically, she is completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we're losing her."

Master Kenobi appeared surprised when he replied, "She's dying?"

"We don't know why. She has lost the will to live. We'll need to operate quickly if we are to save the babies."

"Babies?" Senator Bail Organa repeated in astonishment.

"Yes," replied GH-7. "She's carrying twins."


	3. The Cyborg's Mission

When I escaped my home planet, I didn't do it alone.

I would've preferred to go alone, but a select few strongly advised against it. And since I no longer had any power to assert in their decisions, my protests on the matter were overlooked. Therefore, though I was less than thrilled about it, a security droid was assigned to leave with me. Like some kind of "nanny" holding my hand all over the galaxy.

"I am Q2-400," he had introduced himself to me. "I was originally designed as an assassination unit, but have been reprogrammed as a human life defender."

"Well there's irony for you," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Please explain your meaning, mi'lady. I have not been programmed to process human emotion or intuitive interpretation," he told me. "It would contradict my annihilation drive, which is in place for your protection, but I am easily adapted to acquire new information on human interaction, if need be."

"Well, here's your first lesson. Stay out of my way."

"I am sorry, but my orders were to never let you out of my range of visualization."

"Let's get something straight between us, droid. I don't need a body guard," I informed the Q2 series bot. "Where I'm going, I won't need one, and if the occasion calls for it, I got a DL-44 blaster hidden in my work desk, and two smaller pistols I carry on me at all times. I also keep my own homemade thermal detonators, a stun pike, a pair of wrist rockets, and if all else fails, I can tear someone's eye out with a decent punch."

"Impressive, mi'lady," Q2 approved. "But how are your navigation skills?"

"I know my way around a starship, and I can program my own computers. I also have a knack for reading star-system maps, and can find any star in the galaxy. Blindfolded."

"And what if you can't communicate with the natives once you've land on said star?"

"I know eight of the languages commonly spoken within the Republic and the Outer Rim, including Galactic Basic, Huttese, Mando'a, and Ubese. I've also picked up some droidspeak while on the run," I told him. "So I think I've pretty much proved that I can work my way around without ever needing a droid."

"Anything else you'd like to add, mi'lady?"

"Well, I can make my own tea too, in an assortment of flavors," I told him, shrugging. "The point is, I'm no damsel, Q2, and I won't be treated like one. What do I need a droid for?"

"But have you considered espionage?" Q2 asked me. "Information is power, mi'lady, and it may prove more useful to you than any of my skills. Would you consider using me for that purpose instead?"

And that was our agreement. Q2 was to be my second pair of eyes and ears (metaphorically speaking) on Polis Massa.

When we arrived on the base, they put him to work maintaining data storages in the computer systems. He had access to all research and archaeological finds recorded on the astroid belt, as well as confidential files concerning those who worked on the base, radio transmissions, and various logs of stored medical records. It was an ideal way for him to conduct his espionage incognito, and by staying informed, he would be the first to know if any threat were approaching me on Polis Massa.

One evening, I left GH-7 in charge of my patients, so that I could take the night off for "leisure" time. Of course, that's what I told GH-7, if a certain Jedi were to come around asking questions.

What I really wanted was a moment alone down in the engineering room to consult with Q2 about what had brought the Jedi to the base in the first place. Since the engineering room also housed an archived library of data files, it was closed off to everyone but the base's data droids, and one needed an access code to get in. Lucky for me, I had one of those handy things at my disposal, thanks to Q2.

I found him seated next to the data extraction console, playing a game of Sabacc with the archive computer built into the system of the room.

Though the droid was a mechanical Frankenstein, a head taller than I was with at least three times the bicep mass of an average human, he looked small and vulnerable in the emptiness of that room.

"23!" the archive computer's voice boomed throughout the room, revealing a winning hand on the table, a crushing suit consisting of The Evil One, The Star, andan odd number of Staves, Sabers, and Coins.

In response to that move, Q2 slammed his metallic fist down again on the cards in front of him, and growled dangerously, "By Bane's blade, you hot-wired scum, you're cheating me."

"I don't need to, sir," the computer answered in a crisp, gentlemanly voice. "I have rightfully won the hand, based on the predetermined values that were locked into the table before the game."

"Since when does 3 Staves get you an 8?" Q2 argued back to his opponent. "What kind of idiot do you take me for?"

"Can you not compute?"

"I can compute just fine, you block of sheet metal."

"Correction. I happen to be firmly constructed with a titanium based core," the computer informed him. "Pay up, droid nuts. The game is finished."

"Here's me paying up," Q2 replied, activating the blaster pistol compartment in his wrist, and opening fire randomly on the computerized voice in the room. "That 'll teach you, you karking crinking junk pile. Now, deal me again."

I shook my head, pursing my lips so I wouldn't laugh out loud. Droids took their games way too seriously, especially when it came to Sabacc.

Once upon a time, before Q2 was made my personal spy, he was a renowned battle droid in the army of the Republic, and through heroic action, he had earned the honorary title of "general" in his battlefront unit. But after taking a hit from an enemy sniper in the Jedi-Sith War during the Battle of Coruscant, his career as a battle droid tanked, and he was reprogrammed for assassination.

He still has six blaster holes lodged in his chest, and four in his back, as well as fire scars from working demolition teams, and mismatched parts where others were blown off. He never gets tired of talking about them.

Since the "glory days' however, he's assumed a mundane existence, going through the motions as a droid attendant, which never failed to amuse anyone, seeing this big, miserable, hulking killing machine serve as nothing more than a coat hanger.

It had to be a lonely unfulfilling existence indeed.

"You're still up, Q2?" I asked, finally making my presence known. "I thought you might've powered down by now."

I sat down across from him, and dealt him a fresh hand. "What's your wager? And you better make it good this time. I kick ass at Sabacc."

"I do not have an ass to kick, mi'lady, so that might present a problem. My last master was a gambler, and he had a risk analysis appendage wired into me for such occasions as these," Q2 answered, expertly dealing out the remaining the cards at machine speed. "But I'll go easy on you this time, since you happen to be my favorite human in the galaxy."

"More gambling, and less flattery, Q2."

"How may I assist you today, mi'lady?"

"I was hoping you might have more information to give me on that Jedi I asked you about," I told him.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi. Human. Male. 38 standard years old, born 57 BBY. Originated from the planet Stewjon. Force-sensitive. Jedi Defender of the Galactic Republic. Blue eyes-"

"Yes, Q2, I've seen his medical file," I stopped him before he could ramble on further. "What I'm more interested in is why he's here and what connection he might have with Senator Amidala?"

"Unfortunately, that information has not been uploaded to the data archive, mi'lady."

"Yes, of course it wouldn't be," I said, eager for him to get to the point. "But, you're an espionage droid. Haven't you been espionaging around lately?"

"I've been busy," he defended himself. "Since the influx of refugees on the base, I've been working down here to categorize all the new data coming into our computer systems. I haven't had time for the act of espionaging."

"Well, I'm glad to see you taking your job seriously around here, Q2, but remember who you really work for," I reminded him.

"I did discover the potential father of Senator Amidala's child," Q2 recalled. "A Jedi Knight by the name of Anakin Skywalker. The name seemed of particular interest to the Jedi Masters. According to my yearlong study of human emotion, they appeared to be both in fear and mourning for this Anakin Skywalker."

"A Jedi? How is that possible?" I replied. "It was my understanding that the Jedi were incapable of that kind of thing."

"Actually, it is quite possible," Q2 informed me. "Biologically speaking, the reproductive capabilities of the male human anatomy permit the conception of offspring by the act of-"

"Not what I meant, Q2," I cut him off quickly. "What I'm really getting at is that the Jedi code has rules against forming attachment, which discourages their knights from falling in love or fathering children."

"Correct," Q2 responded. "However, there is now evidence to suggests that it can happen otherwise. Secretly-in the case of Senator Amidala-without the consent of the Jedi High Council."

"Maybe this Anakin was someone close to Master Kenobi then."

"His former apprentice," Q2 nodded, claiming another winning hand against my cards. But I wasn't paying attention anymore. My thoughts were on Padme again as I slowly began to piece her story together.

"I wonder what's happened to him," I mused quietly, a pang of sympathy sweeping through me for the senator. "Why isn't he here with Padme? You don't think that maybe-"

"He was executed with the rest of the Jedi by order of the newly appointed Emperor? A likely probability," Q2 replied matter-of-factually. "But it is not Skywalker that should trouble you, mi'lady. Obi-Wan Kenobi is likely to be your greatest threat."

"Why should he be?"

"He's been asking questions."

"Of course he has," I replied. "He's worried about the senator."

"He's requested access to your data file, mi'lady."

I paused after those words, slowly lifting my eyes from my Sabacc cards until they met Q2's digital red ones. "And did you give it to him?"

"What kind of security droid do you take me for? You should have more faith in me, mi'lady," Q2 replied. "I told him I had no authorization to access employee data files on the ship, and that I was only a communications droid."

"Did he buy it?"

"Well, he didn't repeat his request. He thanked me, and left me to my work," Q2 answered. "But these Jedi have an instinct that we droids will never compute. They are aware of information without having to process it materially first, and Kenobi likely used what is known as a sense, or Force knowledge to prove the statement I gave him as false. Therefore, in addition to that hypothesis, it is likely that Jedi Kenobi has also sensed something different about you that has driven him to ask questions regarding confidential information involving your identity and the circumstances surrounding your arrival on Polis Massa."

"Then I should try harder to be less transparent."

"The odds of that working are not in your favor," Q2 informed me. "If he chooses to act upon his Jedi instinct and demand for access to your data files, by the laws of the Republic, I will have no choice but to obey him, as he is a Galactic defender."

"He wouldn't go that far," I replied confidently. "The Jedi are bound by duty, and if his mission is to protect Senator Amidala, he will remain focused on that. He won't distract himself by chasing after whims and planet-less girls from nowhere. I'm no threat to Kenobi, and I won't give him a reason to feel threatened."

"The risk is still critically high," Q2 said. "If we are to avoid detection, we should leave Polis Massa immediately."

"You want me to go now?" I demanded. "And abandon the senator? I can't just walk away from her like this."

"I know what this means to you, mi'lady, but you must understand that the longer we remain on the base with these Jedi, the more likely-"

"Do you really know what it means to me, Q2?" I interrupted him, trying to hide the fact that my eyes were stinging with emotion. "How can a droid understand something like that?"

"I understand that Senator Amidala's unstable condition is a similar tragedy to the incident you endured with Senator Ravin-"

"Don't say his name."

"I apologize, mi'lady. It's not my intention to upset you, but to warn you," Q2 replied. "You can not save Senator Amidala, and you must prepare yourself for that likely possibility. Prolonging this any further will only compromise your safety. You have exhausted every alternative within your scientific discipline, and none have ended successfully."

"No," I whispered, as an idea suddenly came to mind. "We haven't tried everything." I looked up at him again from the cards in my hand. "Q2, I need to ask you for a favor."

"You never need to ask," he said. "I am yours to command."

"But in this case, I think it's more courteous to ask than to demand you to carry out this order," I replied.

"Is it a dangerous mission, mi'lady?"

"No...but if we fail, we'll pay for it."

"I'll do anything you ask, but I'll have you know that the odds of me liking it are slim."

"I need you to return to Jeotis."

"I knew I wouldn't like this."

"Find Neb, and deliver a hologram to her on my behalf," I instructed him. "She'll know what to do with it."

"You want me to transmit a message to your slave, Nebula Starcreth, on our home world?" Q2 clarified. And though he was only a droid, I thought I caught a hint of disbelief in the way he said that.

"A list, actually. The ingredients I need to process a Deterium based serum. Most of the ingredients I can find here, but Deterium can only be extracted from a volcanic flower that grows on Jeotis," I told him. "It will induce a coma, which may sustain the senator's life, and buy us time to find a way to reverse the adverse effects of her condition. By that time, maybe she will find her courage to live again."

"You want to bring Sith medicine onto base and administer it to the senator with the last remaining Jedi Masters looking over you shoulder," Q2 clarified again. "Would this be what humans call madness?"

"It's not Sith medicine," I defended. "Just something the light side Jedi haven't bothered to try yet."

"If they suspect that you have any affiliation with the Sith Order, they will kill you," Q2 informed me. "If your hologram is intercepted by either the Jedi or the Jeotis government, not even I will be able to help you, mi'lady. Your position will be compromised, and they will come looking for you."

"Then don't let that happen, Q2," I replied. "I'm counting on you to get this right. If this is to be the last order you ever receive from me, carry it out with honor knowing that I wouldn't have wanted it any other way."

"Yes, mi'lady," he said, bowing his mechanical, boxed head in defeat. "As you wish."


	4. The Arrival

I only left my work hub for a minute.

Ok, fine. It was more like 20.

But in my defense, I'd been restocking our medical inventory all day, and I was starved, and the smell of Kallidahin bagels just down the corridor drove me insane. When I saw the refreshment droid hovering by my hub with her tray stacked high with them, I couldn't resist the bait.

It was quiet in the hospital anyway. If I was quick enough, GH-7 wouldn't even notice I was gone.

Sealing the door behind me so no one would disturb my unfinished work, I hunted down that refreshment droid and bribed her into letting me keep a spare bagel for safe keeping. When you live off field rations for months on end, who knows when you'll get another Kallidahin bagel on that base?

After securing my bagels and a flask of Uranium water to get me through the night, I carried an armful back to my hub, wondering how I would then scan my access code with my hands full.

Where was Q2 when you needed him?

Lucky for me (or rather, unlucky for me, depending on one's perspective), I didn't need to touch the access panel to get in. Someone had already done it for me.

It was not GH-7 I found waiting around for me in my hub, but none other than the Jedi Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I knew then that It was going to be a long night.

Of course, Kenobi finding his way into my hub was no surprise, and I was a fool for thinking a locked door meant anything to a Jedi. Jedi rarely knock and are even less hindered by sealed doors. If one wants to come in, they most certainly will find a way to accomplish it, especially one like Master Kenobi. A grand entrance isn't a concept that the Jedi haven't mastered. It's the idea of respecting personal space that they still need to work on.

Then again, when you're the "enemy", you can't not expect a nosy Jedi to come snooping around.

Obi-Wan stood over my work desk, and by using the Force, my beaker levitated in front of him-Yes, that one beaker I had prepared for the Deterium extract I'd sent Q2 to Jeotis for. Of course it would be that beaker his Jedi instincts lured him to.

I paused at the entrance of my hub, my heart racing and stomach turning as I watched his cerulean eyes study the beaker pensively.

Had he already discovered what the antidote was, or did I still have time to distract him?

I cleared my throat to catch his attention.

"You shouldn't play with that, you know. They only let me keep so many of them, and the beaker budget is short these days."

After seeing me walk in, he commanded the Force with one nonchalant wave of his hand, and my beaker floated obediently back to my desk. Surprisingly, it landed on the surface in one piece, without ever spilling a drop of the violet tinted liquid inside.

"Lt. Medical Commander," he greeted me with a nod, folding his hands behind him.

"Obi-Wan," I returned the greeting, eyeing him suspiciously as I walked to my desk and dropped my bagels on top. Why was it so hard to avoid this man?

"I don't mean to intrude on your work, commander, but-"

"Aysen," I corrected him lightly. "You asked about my name earlier. It's Aysen."

He studied me closely, but it wasn't so deeply focused as he had been when studying my beaker. His eyes were warm and gentle as he smiled at me. But I couldn't decide yet if it was a smile of friendship between us or a smile of victory at the surrender of my name?

Whichever way he intended it, there was a certain charm about that smile, and the lightness of his eyes seemed to excite the luminosity in the room around us.

"Then we'll agree to call you that," he replied.

I should've known there'd be no lying to him. That's the tricky thing when dealing with Jedi. They can see right through you. And the way he looked at me, it was like he knew more about me than I knew about myself. It scared me. Why wouldn't he just go away?

Oh right. Of course. Because I acted like I had something to hide the last time we spoke, which likely roused his suspicion. And perhaps because I was mixing an ancient elixir of the dark Sith art to save his friend's life. That may have also had something to do with it.

But without the Deterium flower (a plant that had been banned by the Republic for its abuse as a hallucinatory drug) , how could he know what the antidote was? Without Deterium, my tonic was just benign lavender goop. At this early stage in the process, the chemical makeup of my antidote could've been anything from cake batter to battery acid. To call it anything remotely Sithy would've definitely been a stretch.

Therefore, it couldn't have been the elixir that brought this Jedi to my hub.

And Obi-Wan wouldn't keep me guessing his intentions forever. He went straight to the point.

"Might I have a word with you about a droid who works in your wing?" Obi-Wan asked me.

"You mean, GH-7?"

"Q2-400. My R2 droid was able to identify its model after scanning its serial numbers," Obi-Wan said, pacing the room in deep contemplation.

"Really? Well, I've never heard of a Q2 droid," I replied, trying to look busy at my desk.

"Probably not. Especially since they're not usually found outside the Kayzikan star system," he replied casually, but I could feel his gaze watching my every move and expression carefully. "And you certainly won't find a Q2 droid on astroid belts like Polis Massa. They're manufactured exclusively in the outer rim, on the moon, Jeotis and its neighboring planet, Zekus. The Kayzikan Allied Star System builds them as battle droids to protect their territories, but since the Clone Wars, some units have been reprogrammed as assassins and espionage droids."

"Interesting," I remarked. "And you believe this Q2 unit is hiding out as an assassin on a scientific research base?"

"It's odd, isn't it? What business does an assassin droid have on Polis Massa?" Obi-Wan mused out loud.

"Well, we are a politically neutral safe haven," I pointed out to him. "We provide shelter and treatment to anyone who asks for it, no matter who they are. Maybe the droid was trying to escape the chaos in the wake of Palpatine's election."

"Right," Obi-Wan said, nodding, and I quickly regretted ever saying anything. "That would be a reasonable answer, of course, if droids were their own masters and took their own interest in politics. However, droids aren't usually political. Which makes this question an even even bigger puzzle to resolve. If a droid follows its master, who is this Q2 unit taking its orders from?"

"Well, by that logic, its master is likely a refugee somewhere on this base," I told him. "In that case, you can check the ship's data log for all patients who've been admitted to the hospital with a droid accompanying them."

"Has any patient checked out of your hospital in the last 52 hours?" he asked.

"Not that I'm aware of, Master Kenobi," I replied. "Is there a problem?"

"It appears this Q2 droid has disappeared since I last spoke to him. He's left the base without any authorization or order," Obi-Wan answered. "If he left with his master, you would've been notified of a patient discharge. Am I correct, lieutenant?"

"Of course," I answered, trying to sound as assertive as possible in a nerve-wracking situation like that. "But I received no notification of any kind. I've never even seen this droid on base."

Obi-Wan took a moment to think that over, and I hoped he wouldn't sense or hear how fast my heart was beating in that tense moment of silence.

Q2 had been right. Obi-Wan was unmistakably on our trail, and by me choosing to stay on Polis Massa, we were now playing a dangerous game.

The risk was too high, and though I hated the idea of leaving a place I had become so attached to, it was too risky for me to settle anywhere for too long. I no longer had the luxury of attachment and the sense of belonging and home that I had enjoyed on Polis Massa. I had to get out of there. Nothing else mattered anymore but to leave the base before I was compromised.

"Then what I've sensed is likely true," Obi-Wan Kenobi finally spoke. "The droid is a spy, and he's probably not on our side. If he's working for the enemy, he could be a threat to the security of the base. I must inform Captain Gryff of this breach, and see if we can't find out who this droid is working for and why its been sent to Polis Massa."

He marched out of my hub, but paused on second thought at the doors, before turning to look at me again. "There's no need to fear anything, Aysen," he said to me. "If anything should happen, I will see to it that the base is protected from any outside threats. That's what you fear, isn't it? Capture. Confinement."

"Don't we all fear those things?"

"Well, may we continue to trust in our friendship with each other," he said, turning to leave again.

And though it sounded friendly enough, I couldn't help but wonder if there was some double meaning attached to it. A warning of some kind. A line that I wouldn't dare cross to challenge his faith in me.

"Thank you, Master Kenobi. I hope for the same," I replied. "And good luck on finding your missing droid. I'm sure he'll turn up eventual..."

I didn't get a chance to finish that sentence before the doors of my hub released, and Q2 rammed into the room, nearly charging Obi-Wan down as he made his way toward me.

"Mi'lady!" Q2 cried in a hurry, completely blind to the Jedi Knight standing in the corner, listening to his every word. "I've delivered your message to Jeotis! Nebula Starcreth sent me back with the Deterium extraction, but I've got some bad news! The plan failed. Miserably. I was detected just outside the Jeotis security parameters, and their starfighters have been in pursuit of me ever since. I tried to lose them in hyperspace, but their ships overpowered mine. They've followed me back to Polis Massa. I must evacuate you from the base immediately."

I swallowed hard, feeling my palms go sweaty as Obi-Wan folded his arms over his chest and cocked his head slightly at me. He was betrayed, but still, in no way surprised about it. Finally, he had his proof against me.

There was no talking my way out this of this one.

"Ok, so he isn't the smartest droid off the assembly line, but he's my droid," I finally admitted.

Obi-Wan unsheathed the lightsaber at his belt, and held me at the point of its neon blue blade.

"Who are you?" he questioned me firmly.

"The beginning of your end, Jedi," Q2 answered him, activating his blaster pistol compartments and automatically opening fire on Obi-Wan.

"Q2, no!"

He couldn't help it. He was programmed to attack, and all other functions were overridden to prioritize his annihilation drive. Not only was he about to destroy my hospital, but it was a fight he couldn't win. Obi-Wan was a master fighter, and it wouldn't be long before others were alerted of the disturbance in my hub. Q2 would soon be taking on the entire base to protect me, a battle he would lose.

Q2 continued firing on Obi-Wan, advancing boldly in the Jedi's direction.

With graceful fluidity, Obi-Wan deflected Q2's blaster beams, which ricocheted around the room, tearing smoking holes into walls. I ducked under my work desk to avoid the beams flying around me, and the shattering of beakers as the blaster beams smashed through them. The first to go was the antidote I had been mixing for Padme. Hours of intense labor wasted and lying in a sizzling lavender goop on the floor.

I grabbed a syringe from my desk and crawled out into the open again, quickly trying to rebottle what little of the elixir I could save. Oblivious to the heavy ricocheting blaster beam that gunned straight toward me.

Obi-Wan sensed it before I was aware of it, and quickly used the Force to throw a graduated cylinder beaker in the way of its path. It shattered on impact, but before the shards could pierce into my face, they halted in mid-air, just before they could touch me. I watched a thick floating shard quiver before my eyes, which could have easily blinded me on impact. A whole army of them surrounded me, ready to penetrate through the protective Force bubble Obi-Wan had sealed around me and finish their job.

Though Obi-Wan had saved me the pain of being lacerated, he wouldn't remove the shattered particles from my path. He left the shards to guard me so I wouldn't run off, and continued to duel Q2.

Kenobi could have easily cut my droid down with the deflection of his lightsaber, but destroying Q2 didn't seem to be his objective. Instead, he Force pushed the droid into a storage room behind him and used the Force to seal the door shut.

When Q2 couldn't smash through the sealed storage doors, he activated a thermal detonator and threw it onto the door, blowing it off its hinges instead. Charging at Obi-Wan again, he released the launcher compartment along his robotic spine, and pulled a launcher rifle from inside his back, ready to blow up the entire base to defend me.

No matter what trouble I was in, I couldn't let that happen.

"Wait, wait, Q2. Stop," I shouted at him, before he could put other lives in danger to save mine. "It's alright. Master Kenobi has placed me under arrest, but he won't hurt me. I promise. He just wants to ask me some questions."

"Mi'lady, we don't have time for questions. The Jeotian strike squadron is on their way here as we-"

The walls shuddered again, but it wasn't Q2's devastation that rocked them this time.

A heavy bomb explosion went off somewhere on the base. And then another. And another. And another. Closer and closer to us.

"Speak," Q2 finished finally his sentence.

Obi-Wan marched to the corridor as the echoes of terrified screams and chaos filled the base, and a series of explosions ripped through the facility.

At last, the war had come to Polis Massa.

"We need to shelter you in place, mi'lady," Q2 ordered. "We can't let them find you."

"Let who find you?" Obi-Wan demanded. "Why have they come here?"

"Don't answer that, mi'lady," Q2 warned me. "He's a Jedi. He can't be trusted."

Obi-Wan released the Force barrier around me, and the shards fell to the ground around my feet, making way so he could approach me. He knelt down in front of me, so he could look me reassuringly but firmly in the eyes.

"I haven't sensed a threat in you, Aysen, and I think we both prefer to keep it that way. I do, however, sense that you're running from something, or rather someone, and you've only come to Polis Massa for protection from them. You'll have nothing to fear from me if you choose to cooperate. I will help protect you as a political refugee on this base, but only if you start talking. Who are you? Who are you trying to hide from?"

"Don't listen to him, mi'lady. They're all the same Jedi scum. By protecting you, he really means arresting you," Q2 informed me.

"I will do what I must if the occasion calls for it," Obi-Wan told me honestly. "But either you surrender to me or you surrender to them. The choice is yours. Though I sense you would prefer to be in my hands than in theirs."

In that case, he left me with no other choice.

"My name is Zaira Constellan of the Zaphur regime," I confessed to him. "Princess of the moon Jeotis, and soon-to-be queen consort of the Imperially inclined planet, Zekus. And that is exactly why I can't go back."


	5. The Siege

The first raid of attacks was just a warning, but Jeotian starfighters were not trained to show their enemies mercy. If their power was challenged in battle, they would fight to the death to defend their reputation for valor and power.

It meant nothing to their fleet commander whether this was a war zone or a defenseless hospital. If he was given the order to destroy the base, there would be no survivors.

But despite their reputation for mercilessness, the Jeotian commander had enough self-restraint to call off the second wave of attack.

Though an unexpected move, there could be no doubt that the commander's mission wasn't to destroy the base, but to extract me from it, and blowing the base up would risk compromising that mission.

Instead, the Jeotian battle fleet surrounded the base on all sides, at every angle, so nothing could get in or out.

Through the floor to ceiling windows of the corridor, I could see their ships waiting just outside the astroid belt, ready to release their artillery beams again on command.

There were so many of them. So many ready to defend the greed and political interests of the government they served by gunning down an unarmed hospital in no-man's space. They took orders from a king they'd never met, and wiped out defenseless lives who had never offended them, all for the privilege of calling it a natural sacrifice for the greater good.

We were under siege, and there was nothing we could do to resist it. The base could protect itself with minimal security defenses (which had only ever been used to blast threatening astroids out of the facility's path) but without the protection of the crumbling Republic and its warships, we were sitting ducks. No matter how Polis Massa responded to the invasion, it could only end in devastation for us.

I lost my breath just thinking about it and what was really at stake. My patients. My work. My comrades. The only home I knew away from home. Everything I loved was on that base. And now because of me, they were all in danger.

Under the burden of that idea, I stopped walking, completely frozen in middle of the corridor, and forgetting that I was still following the Jedi to the communications tower.

What point was there in talking down the Jeotian fleet now? There were only two ways of resolving this.

Give them my surrender, or die trying to prevent it.

As I weighed in all the trade-offs, Obi-Wan appeared at my side again.

"Aysen," he told me firmly, sensing my thoughts as he gazed at the battleships lurking dangerously close outside the windows. "You can't fight them. We must stick to the plan."

"Where is Q2?" I demanded. "I need a full strategic combat analysis report from him immediately. We have to initiate a plan on protecting the base when the second wave comes in. And they will attack again. I guarantee you that."

"Your droid has already reported to the security bridge. The defense of the base is in Captain Gryff's hands now. Our goal is to get to the communications tower and see if we can't negotiate with the commander."

"They won't negotiate! They're not Jedi and they have no respect for your peacekeeper dogmas," I replied irritably, completely bewildered by how passively he was approaching this, rather than taking me seriously and taking steps to confront the threat. I'd watched Jeotian warrior pilots all my life. I knew exactly what was coming our way.

"They're not trained to talk. They're trained to fire on anything that puts up a resistance. The base can't survive a raid like this. I have to do something," I told him. "I brought this war on Polis Massa, and it's my battle. No one else's. What is one Jedi against the the entire Kayzikan Star System?"

"It's not a war yet, and there won't be one, if we succeed at negotiations first," Obi-Wan told me. "One Jedi may not withstand them long in battle, but if we're smart about it, we can keep this conflict from escalating any further. If you go out there and confront them directly, I can't ensure your safety. You must remain calm and trust the people around you, your majesty. It would be wiser to stay hidden and discrete until we can speak to the commander."

He left me no more room for argument as he continued marching down the corridor toward the communications tower. I could either follow him, or stand there and do nothing as I stared dumbly at my warships hovering outside the window.

I couldn't let the Jedi negotiate with Jeotis alone. After all, there wasn't an official word for "please "and "thank you" in the Jeotian language. The only cordiality they understood was blaster and missile detonation.

Thus, the negotiations were bound to be short, and then I'd have the pleasure of telling Master Obi-Wan I told him so.

When I reached the communications tower, radio transmissions were already coming in from the Jeotian flagship.

"Master Kenobi, I'm glad you're here," the communication controller said to Obi-Wan. "The Jeotian commander, Fahx, has agreed to cease fire, but he's not leaving. Not until we accept his terms of agreement."

"And what terms are those?" Obi-Wan asked.

"They're demanding that we surrender the Jeotian Queen of Zekus. But it must be a mistake, sir. We don't have their queen on our base," the controller replied. "They didn't seem to take that very well though. I have an incoming hologram transmission from the Jeotian Commander's flagship. Would you like me to accept it?"

"No, not yet," Obi-Wan answered, as it would've been counterproductive to project me standing right next to him in a hologram, especially when I was supposed to be hiding from the fleet. "Inform the commander that we have no queen to give him. Only scientists and medical personnel on this base."

Commander Fahx's response came back quicker than we expected.

"They say if we don't have the Jeotian princess, and we have nothing to hide, then there should be no objections to inviting their commander on base?"

Obi-Wan glanced at me, but said nothing to give the controller any hint that the Jeotian princess was standing right in front of him. As promised, the Jedi protected my identity, and wouldn't disclose it to anyone who would put me at risk.

At least not yet.

"Let Commander Fahx know that we are open to peaceful negotiation, but only if he agrees to call off his siege on the base," Obi-Wan said.

"He's refused that offer, sir," the controller reported. "He won't lift the siege, but he's agreed to negotiation."

"A negotiation? Really?" I asked in surprise, ignoring the smirk of I-told -you-so that Obi-Wan subtly shot my way.

"They are escorting a representative onto base now. The Jeotian Senator Kan. He will oversee the negotiations on behalf of both sovereigns, Jeotis and Zekus," the controller told us.

"Inform Captain Gryff and his security staff to prepare to receive him," Obi-Wan replied. "Let Commander Fahx know that I will go out and meet with the Senator personally to ensure the negotiations stay peaceful."

"It's a trap," I thought to myself, though I'm sure Obi-Wan sensed what I was thinking. "It has to be. They know I'm here. Why won't they attack? It's not like Commander Fahx to-"

Obi-Wan continued, as if in response to my thoughts, "I will need to hold a briefing with Captain Gryff and make sure a defensive strategy is in place, in case negotiations don't go according to plan."

"Captain Gryff is already in conference, sir."

"Inform him that I will be joining him shortly," Obi-Wan said, as he turned to leave the command tower.

"You will take me too, Master Jedi," I said, marching after him.

"Out of the question," Obi-Wan replied. "What did we just say about remaining discreet, your highness?"

"And while you're negotiating with the Senator, how will you evacuate all my patients when the Jeotians decide to attack?" I asked him. "I may be a runaway princess on a backwater planet, but around here, I'm still Lt. Medical Commander and someone has to look out for hospital."

"Fine. We'll go in and brief Captain Gryff together," Obi-Wan gave in. "But leave all the talking to me. The last thing we need is for you to compromise yourself in your eagerness, Lieutenant."


	6. The Making of the Lohvi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aysen's Story (Part I)

I'm not a queen. That title was forced onto me.

If it wasn't the will of the fates that I should be born Princess Zaira Lynara Constellan of Jeotis, I would've gladly taken something else. A farm girl from Tatooine. A working girl on Coruscant. A bum in Hutt's space.

Anything in the universe but royalty.

They say soldiers die for a king they've never met. I die for a planet.

Though I am sovereign, I serve two masters; the people of Jeotis and the jurisdiction of my own heart.

And sometimes, my masters go to war over me.

The primitives of Jeotis, who worship their goddess under the volcanic caves of my homeworld, call our golden bi-ringed moon "aneia aidum", roughly translating to "Aneia's Eden".

All my life, it was exactly that. An eden. Paradise.

In its infancy, Jeotis enjoyed a millennia of peace and opulence, too far away from the core planets to be invaded or exploited by military force.

As far as we can track through our astronomy, Jeotis has always been a moon to the planet Zekus, despite its own substantial size. And for many years (before the rise of the Lohvi) Jeotis thrived under Zekan protection.

Before the Zaphur regime came into power (my family, that is), both Jeotis and Zekus were ruled by humans and were on friendly terms.

At least as far as alliances go.

You can't talk any reason into a Zekan, and you sure as hell can't invite them to dinner, but we needed each other as military allies against common enemies in wild space. So for the most part, we stayed out of each other's politics and only spoke to resolve interplanetary criminal disputes.

Like the planets Mustafar and New Venus, Jeotis owes its wealth and power to the rich volcano systems surrounding the moon.

But unlike Mustafar, the volcanos are inverted and underground, so lava boils up to the surface in lakes and channels.

The early prehistorics who settled the moon couldn't explain why this happened, and they were convinced that they had found "The Gateway To Hell".

However, theories of modern science have long since stripped that myth of its credibility.

Many now knew that it isn't the primitive god Satan causing the lava flow, but the vast volcano systems underneath the surface that run in loops around the entire moon. Jeotian astrophysicists generally accept the theory that once upon a time, before Jeotis and Zekus even existed, there was a mother planet called Haden. Haden had upright volcanos that stood on the surface, like those that were once found on ancient Earth.

Then, millions of years ago, a dwarf star, whom the natives called Pele, exploded at the end of its life, and the force ripped Haden to pieces.

However, the gravity from Pele was so powerful that the pieces didn't shoot out into space, but were gradually brought back together to form a smaller inverted version of the planet. Jeotis.

After more years of collision and reassembly, Haden's remains eventually formed the larger planet, Zekus, and Jeotis became its moon.

Much to their disadvantage, Zekus wasn't given all the best pieces of Haden, and the planet developed into an urban planet to capitalize on manufacturing, much like Coruscant.

All humans in our Kayzikan star system started off on Zekus, but it has since become a planet run by a cyborg elite-the Lohvi.

We created the Lohvi.

They started out as an artificial intelligence experiment.

Scientists had already designed a robot with the ability to think, feel, and rely on intuition like humans can. But we wanted to challenge nature even further.

We were looking for a permanent underclass to serve under us and do all the labor that most humans cringed at the idea of. We had protocol droids already, but they were expensive to replace and maintain. We also had a small slave population (under the Galactic Republic's radar, of course), but slaves were human, and humans came with physical limitations that got in the way of work.

What we needed was a population that could replace themselves like humans could, but who could also work limitlessly, like a machine could.

Our ultimate goal was to create a droid that could biologically reproduce. We designed a droid that was so seamlessly human, you couldn't tell who was organic and who was machine.

However, though audacious of us, no human actually had the power to create life, especially a life that could eventually go on and reproduce more of itself.

Our science just wasn't advanced enough.

Not even in the holocrons of the Jedi temple (where millions upon millions of data are archived in Coruscant), could anyone unravel the mysteries of the unifying Force and its connection to creating life.

So we turned to the "dark side" of the Force for answers, and very rarely did we pause to consider the consequences.

We are not Sith Lords, despite the misconceptions you may hear about us. We just handle the Force differently than the Jedi do.

We don't believe in a light side or dark side of the Force, and we don't reject one side to worship the other. We embrace everything the Force has to offer us. Nothing is good or evil, but only the will of the Force.

What does exist in the Force, however, is degrees of power. Only those who are open and strong enough to obtain those levels are true servants of the Force. They are to be respected, not feared as the Jedi fear them.

Even though I wasn't raised to realize my Force potential, both my parents are products of the Sith.

My mother was a dark side alchemist, and had ties to the Nightsisters of the Sith Order.

But even within their faction, there were differences. While some chose to ignore the light side of the Force and lose themselves in the dark side, my mother chose a "gray" philosophy. She was a powerful shaman, and what I know now of dark side medicine, I learned from her.

But to call it "dark side" medicine is a name only the Jedi use. The methods by which the medicine is made shouldn't matter as much as the lives that it saves.

My mother taught me her craft under one condition. That I exercise my own wisdom when using it, rather than let the Jedi and Sith Orders tell me how to use the Force.

But it wasn't for me to become a shaman like her. She died years before I could complete my training with her, and I had no one to teach me how to reconnect with my Force power.

Honestly, I don't even know for sure if I am really Force-sensitive. I've never been anything that special. I can't control the Force like others can. I can't even sense it.

The only thing I'm really good at is mixing stuff.

The same can be said about my father. He's not in tune with any Force powers, but he is a descendent of the "Blackguard" within the Sith Order.

For the most part, the Blackguard kept to themselves, but were known as the keepers of ancient dark side lore, which had been scattered across the galaxy after the Sith were defeated in the Jedi-Sith wars. They believe that true power comes from knowledge rather than physical force. Traces of my Blackguard family can still be found on Mustafar.

With my father's connection to ancient Sith lore, and my mother's ties to alchemy, the Lohvi came into existence.

However, we still couldn't make something out of nothing. We couldn't create life like nature could. But we could mutate it.

A skilled alchemist in the dark side can easily turn any inanimate object into whatever they need. It's easy to manipulate the atoms of an object that isn't living.

But it takes a master alchemist, strong in the dark side, to manipulate the atoms of something already living and breathing.

No matter what vision you have for the creature, the Force inside of them will always resist any unnatural change you try to push onto the living being. It can still be done, but it takes work.

Trial after trial of manipulating the being with the dark side and using the Force to overwrite their natural form into the thing you want them to be.

That's how we created the Lohvi; a race of cyborg humanoids who were given life only to be enslaved.

Before the Lohvi rebelled and took power, they were considered subclass to humans. They had no rights to vote or any privileges in society. Cyborgs were considered socially inferior to even a human slave. And to make sure they knew their place, we marked them. Every Lohvi has a serial number imprinted on their right wrist.

Now, they use that same mark to distinguish themselves from other Zekans.

After defeating us in the Human-Droid Wars, the Lohvi that were marked elected themselves as the nobility of Zekus, and used their marks as a way to separate themselves from the droids and humans still left under their power on Zekus. However, most organic humans weren't thrilled about living under a cyborg monarchy, and retreated to colonize Jeotis instead.

Since the Human-Droid Wars, Jeotis and Zekus have been at peace with each other.

And we might have gone on being at peace, if not for two rather badly timed inconveniences.

For one, not all Jeotians were content with serving under the current monarchy. In fact, they were anxious to load their blasters and start another civil war, murdering me and my entire family in the process.

That was problematic.

And if that wasn't enough for a girl to deal with in one day, there was that other little thing that forced me to leave Jeotis.

Since the day we first met-years ago at a royal gala party on Zekus-the cyborg prince, Xan Alcantar of the Lohvi, had been secretly and dangerously in love with me.

And that too turned out to be quite problematic.


	7. Runaway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aysen's Story (pt. 2)

As a royal, I was constantly in the scrutiny of the public eye, but there was always one place I could run to hide.

Adin Ravin was my safe haven.

Not just as a protector, but as a person I could unmask myself to without being judged for it. My advisor. My conscience. My intimate friend.

I didn't have to play "princess" when I was with him. I was only Zaira, and he let me be her.

I wasn't always as strong as I wanted to be in front of him either, but somehow, he always took on my burdens, no matter what they were.

However, because he was a Jeotian senator, I could never tell him what I felt when he was around me. Nor could I let the public see those hidden feelings. Though inside, I was exploding with them.

If I had known beforehand what destiny had planned for Jeotis, I would've followed my heart and surrendered the crown they were trying to take from me.

I would've chosen a senator over a prince, and no one would've lifted a blaster to stop me.

It wasn't always like that between us though.

The Ravins had served my family as senators for generations, and though I don't remember much about Senator Ravin when we were young children, I do remember how annoyed I was about him following me around everywhere in court. Always making sure I stayed out of trouble.

He wouldn't let me get away with anything, and once I even pushed him into a trash compacter and tied him up with cord, just so he wouldn't run and tell my mother what I'd been up to.

He got out somehow (much to my displeasure) and told my mother everything!

Because of him, I had to spend a week servicing the trash compacter as punishment, jumping into the nooks and crannies to fix jams in the system. They could never decontaminate me good enough after that, and to this day, everything I eat still tastes a little like Jeotian sewage.

I don't know how Adin did those things. Whether it was luck or wit, he always seemed to find his way out of sticky situations. And he always seemed to find me, no matter where I ran to. I could never come up with a clever enough plan to get rid of him.

But I never once admitted that there was something different about him. Not until a Jedi Recruiter from Coruscant finally came to Jeotis and took him off my hands.

I thought that was luck.

But as a Jeotian summer passed in his absence, I realized I would've given anything to have him back.

I never knew Adin was Force-sensitive, but I guess it makes sense now. All those times in our childhood when he'd torment me, he was really a Jedi in disguise.

Explains why he was an ass, I guess.

But I was so jealous when he left for Coruscant to live in the Jedi Temple. How could Adin Ravin be Force-Sensitive, but I wasn't? I mean, look at my parents!

What in Bane's name was wrong with that picture?

I was so mad, I didn't even bother to say goodbye when he came to tell me he was leaving.

I regretted that later.

I thought I'd never see him again, and years passed between us, as we went on to live separate lives. A galaxy away from each other.

By my 16th life-day, Adin Ravin was a fading memory from the past.

That is, until I received a hologram message that he had left the Jedi Order and was returning to Jeotis.

"You mean you just left?" I asked him in disbelief, as we laid together in a secluded prairie on the night of his return, watching the stars and galaxies above us. "Just like that?"

"Ya," he replied, in slight bashfulness. "I missed home."

"Liar. You just couldn't pass the trials," I teased him. "Even a Gungan can pass the trials! Please tell me it wasn't that."

"No, it wasn't it. I did fine in the trials," he said. "I was even chosen by a master on my first attempt."

"Is that what this is about?" I taunted him, reaching over to inspect the padawan braid lying against his shoulder.

"Well where I come from, real men wear braids," he said, sitting up on his elbows to grin at me. "You should've seen how many girls hang around outside the Jedi Temple on a given day. I am a god."

I punched him lightly in the shoulder. "No, you're an idiot," I corrected him, pushing him onto his back so I could rest my chin on his chest and look into his eyes. "So if you were already chosen by a master, why did you leave? I thought you wanted to become a Jedi Knight."

"I did. I just realized that there were more important things that needed me first. I sensed another calling for my life," he said, awkwardly dropping his gaze from mine, and fidgeting with the grass underneath us. "So here I am. At your service, your highness."

"Well lucky for you, I don't need a Jedi," I said, grabbing his chin to make him look me in the eyes again. "But I could always use a senator."

Though I never admitted my feelings to Senator Ravin, I'm sure he sensed it. He was so in tune to me, and while I tried to hide the stresses of royal life from him, he always seemed to know how deeply affected I was by them.

He was always trying to save me.

"You should get some rest, Zaira," he told me one night, as we stood in the courtyard of my apartment, listening to the soothing fountains around us.

Adin had once said they reminded him of the Room of A Thousand fountains in the Jedi Temple, and I stood there trying to imagine what it was like to be there.

"We're going to war, aren't we?" I asked him. "I know you can sense it. Tell me the truth."

Adin sighed, reluctant to put any more unnecessary stress on me, but he did me the favor of giving me his honest opinion.

"I sense that the dissidents will continue to push for their demands," he said. "But overthrowing the monarchy won't fix the financial problems the Jeotian economy has struggled with since the Clone Wars. If they listen to the Republic separatists and replace this monarchy with a parliament , it won't change a thing. Even if the royal family is taken out of power, they are still allowing themselves to be subjected to the power of the Trade Federation, who will only exploit us for its own gain."

"And did you have any luck negotiating with their leaders today?" I asked.

He shook his head regretfully.

"The separatists have already bought their loyalty. At this point, no matter what we do, a civil war is inevitable," he said. "Our only hope now is for me to return to Coruscant and make another request before the Senate for military reinforcements. But that could take time. The Republic has enough on its hands to see to without having to worry about some moon lightyears away."

"But yet they demand for their share of our exports every quarter," I said bitterly. "We're paying for their warships and they can't even send one to Jeotis?"

I felt Adin's hand gently on the small of my back. "I know it's not fair, Zaira, but I will do everything I can to make them listen in Coruscant."

"No, we're out of time," I said. "We have to act now if we're going to stop this civil war from happening. Instead of Coruscant, I need you to go to Zekus and ask for their support in reinforcements."

Adin shook his head doubtfully "I'm not sure if that's the best move for Jeotis," he said. "Our alliance with the Zekans is unstable, and if they know just how vulnerable the monarch is in this conflict, they're likely to side with the protestors and take the moon by force."

"It may be our only alternative at this point," I told him. "Maybe we can negotiate a trade deal with them in exchange for their military support. But we have to try. And hope that we come up with a better offer than my assassins can give them."

Adin still didn't seem confident about the idea, but he nodded anyway, because it was my order. "I will need to receive permission from your father first, but once he approves my departure, I'll request a conference with the Zekan king."

I was not present for Adin's-I mean, Senator Ravin's conference with the Zekan king. My father thought I'd benefit more from sitting in on a meeting with his Avian Generals, discussing the old "glory days" when men fought with metal blades and pilots didn't need droids to tell them what to do.

I would've rather spent three hours digesting in a sarlacc.

Senator Ravin briefed me on the Zekan meeting later...In my apartment..

When he played back the hologram recording for me, the response that the Zekan senator gave us was not what I expected.

"In response to the Jeotian monarchy and their plea for military reinforcements against the rising rebellion in their capitol city, Ceti 4, the Zekan congressional court has reached a decision. We will send troopers and battle droids to subdue the uprising for as long as Jeotis requires. However, under the following conditions.

"The Jeotians must agree to demilitarize themselves in the Kayzikan star system during this conflict, and allow Zekan forces to operate independently until it is resolved. Second, in order to compensate for the cost of military support, the Jeotians must also agree to contract 65% of the moon's exports to the Zekan government. To ensure that the Jeotians do not default on this agreement, the Zekan royal family has demanded an alliance by marriage between Princess Zaira Constellan and Prince Xan Alcantar of the Lohvi-"

I heard Adin's voice speak up in the hologram recording, interrupting the Zekan senator.

"Jeotis objects to those terms. Princess Zaira is not a part of the negation, and 30% of our exports are already contracted by the Republic. How can you expect the moon to function with only 5% of its revenue channeling back to our economy? Our people would starve."

"That is a tradeoff you'll have to make, senator," the Zekan representative remarked. "If you won't accept our help, I'm sure the Jeotian rebels would be more than happy to oblige us. After all, they offered us twice as much in return, including the Jeotian crown. And if I may speak plainly, by giving you our aid, we're getting the lesser end of the bargain. After all, a princess is hardly worth the value of an entire moon. And if Zekus really sees it in its best interests, we could effortlessly take your moon by force. Look at this offer as a merciful compromise on your part. The Zekan crown will give you time to decide."

I couldn't believe the nerve of them! Giving me ultimatums? An arranged marriage?!

As if we were some uncivilized Earthling nation of the bygone days.

I wouldn't stand for it. I made up my mind to talk to the Zekan king myself and requested an audience with him.

I was so determined to make my case before the Zekans, that I didn't have time to tell Adin I was leaving, and I only took a minimal security detail to Zekus.

In time of war, that was a grave mistake on my part.

Adin must have sensed something was wrong, because the moment my ship landed on Zekus, I received contact from his, telling me not to meet the royal family alone and to wait for him to land first.

But I couldn't wait.

I had to make the meeting, and Senator Ravin would just have to catch up. Time was already against me.

I stood alone before the Zekan king and his senators, trying to reach a compromise that none of them were willing to accept.

"Let's not prolong this negotiation any longer, Princess of Jeotis," the Zekan king addressed me. "Will you or will you not accept the conditions of war that Zekus has offered you regarding this matter, including an alliance of marriage with my son, Prince Xan?"

I glanced at the prince, who kept his silence during the entire meeting, but whose hazel eyes were now on me. He couldn't have been much older than me, but you couldn't tell with Lohvi droids. They were manufactured to outlive humans, and remained youthful throughout their lifetime. According to my sources, Prince Xan was at least 335 years old, though he looked to be only 25 standard human years.

Under dark waves of hair and sweeping eyelashes, he wasn't bad looking at all for a droid. In fact, if he were human, he might've been beautiful, with a lusty muscular build that would've made any woman go cyborg. He had been designed that way, built from the best examples of male sexual appeal that humanity could offer. After all, that was the job of a reproductive droid. To attract a mate.

It wasn't his looks that I objected to. It was the fact that I didn't know him. We'd only spoken once before at the royal gala party, but even that was just to acknowledge that both of us were in the same room. I had no connection with him whatsoever.

There was no way I could marry this droid, even to protect my homeworld.

"No," I replied to the Zekan king. "I will not agree to those terms, and if we can't reach a compromise, I will take my case back to the Senate."

"That won't be necessary, your highness," the king said, projecting a handheld hologram of my ship and Adin's landing next to mine. "I am not here to disagree with you. In fact, it is in both our interests that we reach a mutually beneficial arrangement. You'll see that I've taken measures to help you make your decision by ordering my men to attach a chain of adhesive detonators to your ships. Agree to the terms, and your senator lives. Agree to the terms, and I'll give the order to have the detonators deactivated."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Or, I can kill your senator anyway, arrest you, and hold you ransom here until another agreement is reached for your safe return to Jeotis," he said, matter-of-factually. "The choice is yours."

In other words, it wasn't my choice.

I would have to agree to his demands to avoid any unnecessary loss of life. And so, in front of him, Prince Xan, and a room of Jeotian officials, I swore that I would give myself to a stranger, and hand over Jeotis's exports during our time of war.

Satisfied, the Zekans released me and allowed me to return to Jeotis to make the necessary arrangements.

Senator Ravin and his crew stayed behind to finalize the legal binding.

But I should've known the Zekans wouldn't keep their end of the deal.

As I waited eagerly on Jeotis for Adin's ship to return, a whole day passed before I finally got word of him.

Once my contract with the Zekan monarchy was notarized, Adin and his entire crew were executed.

After receiving the news, I crumbled onto my bedroom floor. I can't even begin to describe the pain I felt then, and the only person who had the power to stop it was now gone.

I watched my entire universe rip apart the night Adin died.

And not even a day after, Zekus declared war on Jeotis, launching an invasion my homeworld. The Zekan's whole motive in the arrangement had been to take over Jeotis.

Me and my family have been hiding since the invasion. I don't know where they are. My only contact with Jeotis has been my slave, Nebula Starcreth, while the rest of the royal family is now scattered all over the galaxy.

It's not ideal, but it was what we had to do to protect ourselves.

I don't use my given name anymore. Zaira Constellan is in chains.

Aysen Avala may not be a queen, but she is free.

Free to choose. Free to love.

And free to feel the pain thereafter.


	8. For The Greater Good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***Security conference at Polis Massa. Written in Obi-Wan's perspective

Why does she look so sad?

It was the last thought I should've allowed to break my concentration at the time.

But as Captain Gryff briefed us on the geographical layout of the base, I caught myself glancing again in Aysen's direction through the cyan geo-scan map projected in the middle of the room.

It had to be the lighting that made her eyes look like that.

The quiet azure luminesce of the projection played on her face in a sad but soothing glow, reminding me of the glow rods that used to hang dimly in the Jedi Temple to keep a meditative hush in the early morning hours. The soft blue flare of the map made her fiery brown eyes shimmer as she listened intently to Captain Gryff's report.

Suddenly, her eyes wandered away from his face and met mine across the room.

Whatever melancholy I had sensed in her before, she quickly hid away, and put on her usual determined aura. She raised a brow in inquiry at me that clearly spoke multitudes between us.

What are you staring at, Jedi?

I dropped my gaze from hers and turned back to the map, giving my attention back to Captain Gryff.

To stay focused, I drew myself into a moving meditation, channeling all my concentration to what was being said, and shutting out everything else out in the room. Including Aysen.

"They are not Imperials. They are Kazikan warships," Q2 corrected Captain Gryff.

"What the bloody nova is a Kayzikan?" Captain Gryff growled back at him.

"Inhabitants of the Kayzika Star System within the outer rim, which consists of a plethora of planets, including key Republic trade points like Senius, Wiacarro, Zekus, Aolia, Jeotis, and Grololara. It's quite substantial for a star system, captain, and was vital to the mining of precious gems and minerals in Republic commerce. Which means they are heavily armed, and have no reserves about blowing your wee bit parts across the galaxy. Which means you don't want to underestimate them."

"Somebody better start giving me some answers," Gryff demanded of his security staff. "What the sarlacc are these no-wood, nerf-herding, chicken-walking idiots doing in my-"

"Kayzkians-" Q2 interrupted him again. "They're referred to as Kayzkians."

"Will someone get this damn droid out of here?" Gryff growled. "Did I not make it clear that this was a private security meeting for security personnel only? No droids allowed!"

"Well then, you'll just have to revise your rules and make me the exception, captain, because I'm not going anywhere," Q2 answered, initiating a system unlock of his artillery compartments.

"Not now, Q2!" Both Aysen and I stopped him, before he could act on that thought.

"I'll have you for a footrest if you try me, you greasy clanker!" Gryff roared at Q2.

"My apologies, sir. He's with me," Aysen spoke up. "He will be assisting me with the patient evacuations."

"Isn't that where you should be then, Medical Commander?" Gryff muttered. "In a hospital somewhere!"

"Well once you answer my question, captain, I can be in one," she informed him. "As I asked you earlier, if we're attacked again, how will we move the patients safely to the underground shelter?"

"The patients can walk themselves. That's not my concern right now, girl," Gryff answered. "In case you haven't noticed, commander, I have an armada at my door."

"The ones who are able to do it can walk, Captain Gryff, but Lt. Avala is speaking for the ones who can't," I informed him, giving Aysen a hand and my support against him.

I had the feeling that because she was young-hardly 24 years-and a woman, Gryff found it easier to disregard her and anything she had to say.

He would not find me so easy to ignore.

"Given that the majority of the refugees you protect on this base are also under her care, it would be wise to hear what she has to say," I asserted.

Gryff tightened his lip, but after a quick glance at the lightsaber hanging from my belt, he seemed to think twice about his objection. I had no intention of using force, or overriding his command, but I did stand by the idea that out of all his staff, Aysen's say mattered most in that moment.

"And what-," Gryff continued, slowly dragging his glaring eyes from me to Aysen. "-are your primary concerns in this matter, Lt. Avala?"

"Senator Amidala, sir," Aysen went on, shooting a subtle smile of gratitude at me. "Her condition is still unstable, and I'm afraid that moving her will cause unnecessary stress on her body. She's been scheduled for a cesarean operation, but we can't risk delivering her babies in a contaminated war zone. We need specialized security accommodations for her as she is moved to the shelter."

"Even as my bleeding heart sinks for you and your hospital, Lt. Avala, there is nothing I can do. I can't be concerned with one patient, when I have a whole base to think about," Gryff replied dismissively. "Do what you have to do to get her out of that hospital when the time comes. Or leave her behind."

"But if we cut off her life supports while moving her, she may not survive it, and we could lose her babies."

"You have my sympathies, lieutenant," Gryff said through gritted teeth. "But it is a sacrifice we will have to make for the benefit of the whole base."

The room fell quiet under the captain's callousness, and especially at his indifference toward a weaker human being in peril.

Though Captain Gryff lacked tact in delivering his strong-willed opinions, I was forced to see the necessity of his answer.

He didn't know Senator Amidala personally, and that was his advantage over Aysen and I. it was easier for him to dismiss Padme from his worries, if it meant doing his duty effectively.

In fact, it was a move that would've been supported by the Jedi and their teachings.

A move that I would've been compelled to allow, despite my connection to Padme and her unborn children.

Attachment only leads to darkness and pain. It is not the Jedi way.

Therefore, I had to put aside my own feelings for the senator, and observe the teachings of my Order.

You cannot turn your back on an entire planet to save one life.

The same advice I had given Anakin only a few years earlier, during Padme's abduction by General Grievous in the Clone Wars.

The same advice Master Yoda had spent years lecturing me on, and every other youngling after me.

The Jedi serve for the greater good. Not for the interests of one. That is the Jedi way.

It was my own teachings that I would have to abide by when considering Padme's situation, and inevitably, the same principles I needed to follow in Aysen's case.

If the negotiations didn't go according to plan, I could not sacrifice the entire base to keep her from being captured.

But if Aysen was only to be dragged from under my protection in the end, why did the Force put her in my path?

Since the day I charged into Polis Massa with Padme in my arms, I sensed something ominous about the medical commander who took her into her care.

Something like darkness surrounded Aysen's energies in the Force, which quickly put me on guard. Yet as I watched her through the transparent walls of Padme's unit, that darkness seemed to stand out as a contradiction against Aysen's quietly-spoken and altruistic nature. Followers of the dark side rarely practice those traits, and even less frequently think twice about the worries of others.

"I've sensed something dark about her, Master, but it is not the mark of a Sith Lord," I had said to Master Yoda, as we stood in the corridor watching Aysen work with Padme. "Could she be a threat?"

"A mystery, the Force can be," Master Yoda had replied to me. "Not what they seem sometimes, things are. Look into it, you must. But careful with the dark side, you must be."

Yet, there were other pressing matters demanding my attention at the time. Most importantly was the question of what would become of Padme's children, if she were to...pass on.

After destroying the Jedi Order, the Emperor's path of devastation would likely target all Force-sensitive children in the galaxy, and the children of Anakin Skywalker would be a particular interest to him. To keep the children safe from the Empire, arrangements needed to be made immediately to send them into hiding. And even after that, they would need someone to look after them and ensure they were protected.

Only I, Master Yoda, and Senator Bail Organa were fully aware of the severity of the situation. It was up to us to decide the course of these younglings, who could one day be the last hope against the Sith Empire.

With the weight of that decision on my shoulders, all other maters were trivial.

There was no room for distraction, and it certainly wasn't a time for me to follow my Master Qui-Gon's example and concern myself with side quests that didn't serve my mission.

But after hours of meditation, I couldn't purge myself of Aysen's energies, and the Force seemed to always draw me back to her.

Even if its purpose remained unclear.

It was my duty to serve the Republic and protect those, like Aysen, who lived under it. But it was also my duty to remember my teachings, and consider the greater good. If these actions were expected out of me as a Jedi, how was I to obey them both at the same time?

Why would the Force contradict itself by pushing me toward two goods that ultimately opposed each other?

If I protected Aysen, I gave up the base and put Padme in even greater danger.

And if I gave up Aysen, I turned my back on my purpose as a Jedi.

I could already hear my Master Qui-Gon's voice in my head, quietly reminding me that,"It is in the outer rim and with its people that the Jedi serve a true purpose."

I only wish he were here.

"And what is your strategy for protecting her highness, Princess Zaira, captain?"

Q2's statement broke through my trail of thought, ripping me back into the present moment with his unthinking and hasty judgements.

"You can't expect her to carry out evacuations without any additional security protecting her from the Jeotian commander."

"Q2!" Aysen whispered fiercely to him.

"Lt. Avala?" Captain Gryff said in confusion, looking between her and her droid. "What is he talking about?"

The droid, finally realizing his error, stood dumbly as all eyes in the room shifted from him to Aysen. "I'm so sorry, mi'lady," he said. "I had no idea that that detail was confidential. I thought you had already told them."

Captain Gryff's eyes shot back to me, but I could only shake my head, wondering who's brilliant idea it was to trust this droid with Aysen's life.

"And you were aware of this, Master Jedi?" Captain Gryff demanded of me.

"It came to my attention shortly before our meeting," I replied. "But regardless of Lt. Avala's identity, we should proceed with the plan and try negotiating with the Jeotian commander for a better compromise."

"Well, if you ask me, Master Jedi, the solution to our problem is starkly obvious," Captain Gryff declared, turning his dark eyes back to Aysen. "The girl's got to go!"

"Captain Gryff, I know this is a bit of a shock for you, and I'm sorry I brought this on all of you," Aysen tried to reason with him. "But I have a job to do here, and I am ready to die protecting those people in my hospital. I will fight the fleet if I have to, but you can't just-"

"Do you realize what danger you've put us all in?" Gryff declared to her.

"Captain Gryff, we don't want to rush into any ill-advised action-" I began.

"I stand by my decision, Kenobi," he growled. "Queen-whoever the damn hell she is-will be returned to the Jeotian commander immediately. This isn't our fight. This is a science facility, Master Jedi. Not a battle fortress."

"Princess Zaira is a refugee of the Republic and is therefore under my protection," I answered. "We will try to talk with the Jeotian senator first, and peacefully settle the conflict. It is better than to provoke the commander by giving him the impression that we were lying and hiding the princess here intentionally."

"With all due respect, Jedi Kenobi, our hospital is under seige! Nothing good can come out of pouring the senator a drink and letting him cry on your shoulder about some woman who got away," Captain Gryff declared. "How long will these negotiations take before the commander changes his mind and blows us into no-man's space?!"

"Captain Gryff," Aysen began. "If you'll allow me to speak-"

But before she could finish that thought, a small blue medical drone buzzed through the access doors and hovered right through the middle of the room until she reached Aysen.

"What in Hutt's spawn did I just say about droids in my conference hub?" Captain Gryff raged. "Does anyone around here understand the meaning of the word confidential?"

"Lt. Avala," the drone went on to deliver her message, ignoring Captain Gryff and his tantrum in the background. "Your comlink and locator were disconnected, so GH-7 sent me here to find you. You are needed in the hospital wing immediately!"

"Is something wrong?" Aysen asked in deep concern.

"It's Senator Amidala. She's gone into labor."

"Now?!" Aysen cried.

"Yes. She has had consistently timed contractions for 122 minutes now, and her amniotic membrane has ruptured. She's asked for you."

Aysen looked at me, but she didn't have to say anything for me to understand.

I knew she had to see to her patient, and I watched her hurry from the room with the medical drone buzzing after her.

It couldn't have been more badly timed.


	9. The Tragedy of Padme Amidala

It couldn't have been more badly timed.

In fact, it was the absolute worst possible moment for me to deliver a baby under the gun of a Jeotian fleet outside the hospital. But Padme's babies were coming, and ready or not, every other priority would have to be brushed aside to ensure that their arrival into the universe went safely and smoothly.

I trusted Obi-Wan to do his best to negotiate the Jeotian senator. And Padme trusted me to do my best in getting her through this.

"Are they alright?" she whispered to me, sweating as her words became all the more lethargic in pain and exhaustion. "Will they make it?"

"They're doing wonderfully," I assured her, glancing at the holo-monitor in front of me. The numbers 138 and 145 gently pulsed in the upper right hand corner, tracking the tiny heartrates of both the infants.

"Their heartbeats are a little faster than earlier, but that's to be expected from little ones," I assured Padme with a smile. "It's a new and exciting world for them. And twins too. You're going to have your hands full, senator. I'm sure they can't wait to meet you."

Padme smiled back wearily, but she didn't reply. Her head fell slowly to the side to gaze at my holo-monitor and the pulsing energies of the fragile life she had loved and nurtured.

"Have you picked any names for them yet?" I asked her.

"Luke and Leia," she whispered, her words heavy with pride and affection."Can I see them?"

I tapped the echogram transmitter on the monitor, which projected an ultrasonic image of the babies snuggled securely next to each other, one behind the other with the boy's rounded little cheek resting on the girl's shoulder.

"This one is your son," I pointed out his sleepy face on the monitor. "And the one to the right is your little girl. She's the boss. You can already tell."

Padme smiled again as her amber brown eyes studied the monitor. "She's beautiful."

"And she's awake," I told her. "Her heartbeat is the faster one of the two. She can hear every word we're saying right now."

Padme rested her head against the pillow again, as she watched them silently. "I love you both so much," she whispered to them. "Please forgive me one day."

I saw a tear trail across the bridge of her delicate nose, and then others that followed.

I couldn't imagine what she was going through. Watching her there was enough to break a heart, but it would never add up to what she really felt.

Despite everything she'd been through, and the Imperial wars ravaging the galaxy, nothing tormented her more than to lose the one she called Anakin.

The evidence of Anakin's fall to the dark side was undeniable, but even as I sat there with her, Padme continued to question the moment that Obi-Wan told her Anakin was lost. That Anakin had turned on the Jedi Order by murdering one of their own, Mace Windhu. That his path of devastation hadn't ended there, but went on to mercilessly claim the life of every youngling at the Jedi Temple. That there was no room for any good in Skywalker's heart now that the "Sith" way had hijacked his conscience.

"I never thought Anakin would hurt me," Padme told me, trembling in the memory of the incidents on Mustafar.

But he had. He was the reason for the bruising of ruptured blood vessels I'd found on her neck, and continued to be the reason for her descent.

What happened on Mustafar between her and Anakin left her shaken. If Obi-Wan hadn't stepped in, she thought she might've been dead.

She didn't know the man staring hatefully back at her, and there seemed to be no regret in his eyes as he Force choked her into submission. His eyes were on fire with rage and contempt. They were no longer the same dreamy blue eyes that had lovingly glanced her way when no one else was looking. They were not the same eyes she had stolen glances at from across the Senate, communicating promises and secrets to each other that only they could understand. That Anakin was gone, and the eyes that remained belonged to a monster who remembered no love for her. A Sith Lord.

There was no longer any connection between them. Not even the thought of their babies could pull him away from the dark side.

"It's so hard to believe that only a week ago, we were standing under the stars on our balcony in Coruscant, arguing about baby names," she said. "Everything we planned for our future is gone now. He will never be my Anakin again."

To Padme, the galaxy had been a flawless pantomime that she and Anakin had envisioned for themselves on Naboo. Now, it was a stranger to her, and left no more room for idealisms.

And once hope was lost, her lifeline severed.

She couldn't live in a universe governed by so much hate. Not when she had once known what love was like. What love had been.

And then what love had lost.

I don't know anyone who could ever shoulder the pain she endured, feeling as if she were slowly dying inside day by day.

She was dying. Undoubtedly.

Padme had completely lost the will to live.

And with each passing moment, life slipped away from her. Every movement after that taxed her waning energy. Her pulse diminished, struggling under the weight of her anguish. Every breath grew more laborious, and her vision blurred as color dulled and faded from recognition.

Nothing was beautiful anymore. Nothing would ever be worth fighting for again.

"This is bad for the babies," she whispered to herself, and struggled to pull together all the broken pieces, which only seemed to slip faster through the fingers of her sanity.

By that time, her son had woken up too, and was wiggled restlessly on the screen of the holo-monitor.

He was more active than usual in that moment, kicking lightly against her belly as if to remind her that she still had a reason to live. In a way, it was like he sensed her distress and was desperately trying to convince her to not give up.

Perhaps he knew, as well as she did, that he had lost a father, and was now on the verge of losing his mother too.

But no matter what joy the babies had brought her before, Padme could only think of the sadness her son would bring her when she saw how much his face resembled Anakin's.

She couldn't bear the thought of it, and I noticed her gradually look away from the holo-monitor, distancing herself from her babies, just as she distanced herself from everything else she loved. She didn't look at them again. Not even they could give her hope anymore, or stop the tears from staining her cheeks.

If she could, she would have ripped her own heart out, if it meant not feeling the pain every time she thought of her husband, Anakin Skywalker.

Without him, she truly believed there was no other place for her in the universe.

"I can't do this," she said in tears, as her contractions gradually became stronger. "He was supposed to be here with me. Anakin was supposed to be here."

"I know," I told her. "But you're not alone in this. I'm right here, and when the time comes, I'll be here to help you get through it. We'll do it together. We'll breathe and we'll push together. And we'll see these children into this world together. We're strong, Padme. We're fighters, and the pain can't hold us down forever. Just take long deep breaths, and if you feel the urge to push, take it slowly and one at a time. Block out everything else and concentrate your energy on you and your babies."

I looked over my shoulder at the medical drone who had hovered in with a fresh set of hospital blankets and sterilizing fluid.

"More anesthetic, please!" I called to her, as I rechecked Padme's failing vital signs. "Double the original dose."

"Doubling anesthesia injection by 0-250 milliliters," she repeated my instructions, as her quick mechanical hands prepared the serum.

"Hang on, Padme," I comforted the senator, wiping the coated sweat from her brow. "You're almost there."

I was so concentrated on Padme's oxygen levels, which were gradually dipping to unsafe levels, that I didn't immediately notice the two security troopers, standing guard outside the delivery room.

It wasn't until GH-7 came in to speak to me that I finally took notice of them.

"Lt. Avala, Captain Gryff has asked for you," GH-7 said. "You're needed back in the security hub immediately."

"Tell him he'll have to wait. I'm in the middle of a delivery right now."

"He's asked me to look after the senator while you're away," GH-7 persisted. "He says it won't take long."

Sighing, I turned back to Padme's monitor, quickly recorded her most recent vitals, and stood to leave the room.

"I'll only be gone a minute," I promised her. "GH-7 is going to take care of you."

But Padme didn't seem to process what I was saying. The anesthesia was starting to take effect, and her awareness became disoriented as her words slurred deliriously, "Anakin, he...I know there's still..."

It was the last thing she was able to say to me, before even that thought slipped into delirium and she became silent again.

As much as I needed to stay and work, I had to leave her. The security troopers were particularly dragging me out of the room. "It's time, Lt. Avala. Captain Gryff is waiting. Please do not delay any longer and let us escort you to the security hub."

Reluctantly, I obeyed, and followed them out into the corridor.


	10. The Agreement

When I reached the security hub, Gryff seemed to be in a better mood than he was when he first greeted me.

"Aysen," he said to me warmly, as if he hadn't just tried to throw me off the base only two hours earlier.

"You sent for me?"

"Leave us," he said to the security troopers who had brought me in. Only after the room was cleared, did Captain Gryff continue. "I have good news for you. The negotiations with Jedi Kenobi and Senator Kahn went smoothly, and they have come to a timely and mutually beneficial agreement. You are to be returned to the Jeotian commander, and sent back to your home planet, Jeotis, without further delay."

I furrowed my brow in confusion. That couldn't be right. At least, not so soon. "But Obi-Wan-"

"Unfortunately, Master Kenobi was unable to reach an agreement with the senator on allowing you to stay on base," Captain Gryff interrupted me. "But in exchange for a peaceful resolution to the siege, he has agreed that it is in our best interests to hand your ass over to the Kayzkian fleet."

"Obi-Wan said that?" I asked, eyeing him in disbelief.

"Well, in a few extra words and phrases to fluff it up nice and pretty for the senator. You know how long-winded these Jedi can be when it comes to politics, but his meaning was eventually established in favor of your surrender," Captain Gryff told me. "The decision has been reached."

"Then why didn't he tell me that himself?" I asked. "Where is he? I need to speak with him."

"I'm sorry, your highness, but I'm afraid that's not a possibility at this time," Captain Gryff replied. "Kenobi and your droid, Q2, are still in session with Senator Kahn wrapping up the last minute details of your departure. However, as the agreement has already been made, your presence is no longer warranted on this base. Please allow my men to escort you off base, and we'll see to it that your droid finds you after."

"That can't be," I said, shaking my head. "Obi-Wan promised me that he would meet with me again after the conference to discuss any other renegotiation."

"Did he? Well, perhaps you should've gotten it in recording," Gryff suggested, approaching the hologram transmitter next to him. "These Jedi are infamous for switching sides when another arrangement suits their interests better."

Gryff activated the hologram console, and my stomach turned when I met the glowing golden eyes of Prince Xan of the Lohvi buzzing through projection.

"Your most supreme high," Gryff greeted him. "I believe I've found what you're looking for. Is this your royal stowaway?"

Xan studied me intently, his eyes tracing me vertically in head to toe inspection.

My skin crawled, feeling ravaged by his stoic and scrutinizing gaze.

"Her complexion is paler than I remember, and her somatic mass has diminished slightly since last we met, likely due to the dismal nutrition capsules you administer to your staff on base. They're hardly substantial for a Zekan queen. But I do not detect any indications of poor mental or physical health, or any additional defects that would interfere with my purposes for her on my planet Zekus," Xan replied, in his mechanically androidium speech. "You have my consent to initiate her transfer to my flagship."

"Thank you, your highness," Gryff replied. "I will have my men escort her to you immediately."

"I am not leaving until I speak to Obi-Wan," I told Gryff firmly. "I have a patient dying in the middle of child labor, and she needs me to back in that hospital wing. You can not force me off this base now."

But Gryff wasn't listening, as ordered into his comlink, "Send in the queen's escorts."

Four security troopers emerged into the hub and surrounded me on all sides, blocking all angles of escape back into the corridor.

"You have nothing to fear from me, my sweet," Xan told me. "I understand that the hasty and cold legal union of our marriage has placed you in significant distress as my newly wedded bride. Your behavior until now has been expected. However, now that you have taken this extended retreat to find peace and come to terms with your emotional faculties, I regret to inform you that it is time to resume your place as queen of Zekus and Jeotis, and that you must return home immediately to assist in the governing our combined worlds."

"Our worlds?" I questioned him. "Or just yours?"

"It's a shame you still think so little of me," he replied. "I only wish you would give me the opportunity to demonstrate to you how unlike my father I am, and that I have spent a year in your absence working for a peaceful and equally beneficial coexistence between Jeotis and Zekus. My affection for you, Zaira, has remained constant, and I am not here to hurt you or push you further into a state of distress. However, if you will not come to Zekus willingly, I have no other alternative but to seize you by force."

"It's pointless, droid," I told him, feeling nothing but a sickening resentment for his glowing alien eyes and the sound of his unnatural voice. "You may have my moon, but you won't ever have me."

If the remark wounded him, there was no indication of it. He remained as unreadable and stoic as a machine could master, only pausing a moment in meditative silence to process my words.

"You will change your mind, Zaira Constellan," he said confidently. "I may not be the human companion you asked for, but as a prince of cyborgs, I have the luxury of forever, far beyond the era of human extinction. I have your lifespan, an average of 75 human years, to earn your love and trust. And as such, my patience is infinitely unmatched."

Then he looked at the four men who were to be my escorts. "You have 60 minutes to deliver Princess Zaira to her ship. See to it that she is left with my attendants and that she has every comfort for her journey back to Zekus."

When the first trooper reached up to seize my elbow, I ripped myself away from him. "I will not be dragged off this base like a prisoner," I told him firmly, glaring at all four of them, and daring them to touch me again. "I will walk to my ship myself."

Two of my escorts led the way in front of me, while the other two guarded me from behind.

I marched out into the corridor, abandoned and deceived by a Jedi.

Q2 had been right. Jedi can't be trusted, and it was the last time I'd ever put my trust in one.

It was a lesson that took longer for me to master, but nonetheless, it was well learned in the end. The first time I came to know hatred and anger toward the Jedi they called Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I am a daughter of Sith Lords, after all. Vengeance is the bloodline of our existence, and Obi-Wan would pay for his betrayal.

"Thank you, captain," Xan told Gryff. "I can't tell you how grateful I am for the safe return of my wife."

"The pleasure is all mine, your majesty," Gryff replied. "Do us all a favor by not losing her again. I will inform your senator of our agreement once he and Kenobi return from the conference hub."

"And will we be expecting any further interference from this Jedi Knight?" Xan asked.

"Let me handle Kenobi," Gryff answered. "I reckon he won't give you any trouble once you keep your end of the deal and remove your warships from our base."

Xan nodded to him with remarkably faultless grace and courtesy that no one but a machine could ever accomplish. "Farewell, captain."

And the hologram dissolved into static.


	11. Insurgent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan POV

From the moment I arrived in the conference room, I sensed something...off about Senator Kahn.

There was a strange kind of resolve about him; an aura that can often be sensed in both one who's life is fulfilled, and one who has never fulfilled anything in his entire existence. It can be tricky to distinguish between the two.

And with the flat and impassive gray expression on Senator Kahn's face, it was difficult to read his true intentions.

Whatever they were, they didn't seem to be his own. More like a possession rather than conscious autonomy. It was such odd behavior that I was taken back to the time I served as a General during the Clone Wars; when an infection of mind-controlling Geonosian worms attacked Anakin's padawan, Ahosoka Tano, and a crew of clone soldiers on a medical supply ship.

Kahn's demeanor was strikingly similar to the infected victims I'd seen, but without proper examination, (or any means to blow the cooling reactor in the room) I couldn't tell if mind-controlling brain worms were the case, or if Senator Kahn was really just off form when it came to his social skills.

Yet, by all means, I couldn't dismiss the strong suspicion I had that "Senator Kahn" was not like himself that day.

He wouldn't let me out of his sight. His round black pupil-less eyes remained fixed, and were quick to calculate every move I made in his presence. As if he were expecting a rash and physical reaction in response to the message he'd come to deliver me.

He was right to assume I was on guard. But for what reason, I had yet to find out.

"I regret to have troubled you all with this inconvenience, Master Jedi, but Jeotis thanks you for your concern in our planetary matters, and assures you that all will be resolved fairly and in a timely manner once we've returned to our homeworld."

The words sounded forced, as if he'd been rehearsing the speech with his Zekan droid allies. Or that he feared that saying anything other than what he'd been told to say would somehow get him into trouble.

That wasn't abnormal behavior for a senator. The very job description calls for one to speak on behalf of others, rather than for one's own values.

But even the most novice senator remembers to blink from time to time, so as not to draw suspicion to what he's really up to.

"This is an interplanetary matter which entirely and exclusively concerns the moon Jeotis and its ally, Zekus. We appreciate your assistance, but we no longer require any third parties engaging in our politics, and prefer to settle this conflict among our own. Having said that, I ask that you release Queen Zaira Constellan to her people immediately."

"I beg your pardon, senator, but it isn't Zaira's people out there threatening to destroy a hospital and hundreds of innocent lives with it," I answered him. "If it is the Jeotians asking for her, why would they send a Zekan fleet and not their own security entail to escort the princess back to Jeotis?"

"Well, it all boils down to the conditions laid out in the war-time treaty between the planets. Jeotis has agreed to demilitarize its forces so that the Zekans can further assist in squashing the rebellion tearing our moon apart. For her protection, it was agreed upon that Zaira be transferred by a fully armed Zekan fleet, rather than a Jeotian royal crusier," Kahn replied.

"And I'd imagine that the arrangement was heavily voted upon by the Zekan side of the council," I remarked.

"On the contrary. It was an unanimous decision."

"Unanimous, you say?" I replied skeptically. "And what progress has been made toward peace on Jeotis now that the Zekans have generously 'lended' you their army?"

"I know what you're getting at, Jedi. And you have no reason to fear any foul play. Zaira will be in the protecting hands of her people once she returns," Kahn stated, dodging my question with an indirect answer. "It is unfortunate that during her absence, we were unable to make permanent peace treaties without her royal stamp of approval. But once she is returned, negotiations may resume toward a resolution. All we want is peace in our star system. The galaxy may be at war, but we will be an oasis away from political exploitation and tyranny. I'm sure the princess looks forward to taking part in that ideal for her people, as her regime will be praised with restoring balance between our worlds."

Now where had I heard that before?

"I've no doubt that Lt. Avala-Princess Zaira, I mean, will be happy to finally return to her planet," I said to him. "But if your 'oasis' is really the happy home she's looked forward to, why did she feel the need to leave it in the first place? You continue to leave that unanswered, Senator Kahn. She has made it clear that she is a political refugee, and does not wish to return to Jeotis at this time. And if you'll allow me to speak my mind frankly, it seems that Commander Fohx's only goal is to capture her as a royal hostage, allowing the Zekans to keep control over your moon-"

"That is not the case," Kahn objected immediately. "As I said before, Prince Xan seeks a peaceful alliance between Zekus and Jeotis. Zekus has always been an ally to us, and their forces have served us tremendously with the civil rebellion on Jeotis."

"But as I understand it, Zekus still hasn't withdrawn their "alliance" from your planet, and they've given you no word on when they intend to," I pointed out to him. "Now I don't know what the Zekans are calling it, but by everyone else's definition, that is an act of invasion and a declaration of war. The only thing left for Xan to do now is to stabilize the power you've willingly handed over to him. And how convenient it would be for him to seize Zaira like a prisoner, and have her close by under his control without any threat of her forming alliances elsewhere against him."

"I'm sorry to hear that you mistrust the droid Prince, Master Jedi," the senator replied. "But if you knew him as I do, you would see that he is a better leader than his father was. And by all accounts, he wants what's best for his new bride. Zaira is entitled to her sovereignty as Xan's queen consort, and fully authorized to rule her moon as she sees fit. That is not the issue in question here."

"Well the very idea that she needs his authorization to rule her own planet doesn't sound like a mutual and peaceful coexistence to me, senator," I replied. "And as a Jeotian representative, I might've expected you to be less at ease than you appear with this arrangement. It's no wonder Zaira feels as if no one is on her side in this conflict. You speak cogently for Prince Xan, but have given me no indication that you carry your princess's interests in mind at all."

"I'll admit that Zaira and I have not always seen eye to eye on certain matters," he replied. "After Senator Ravin was murdered by the Jeotian rebels, I was forced into my position as senator before I was ready to take it. And Zaira has made it unmistakably clear that I was not her first choice either. But I am not here to flatter Her Highness. I'm here to end a war. All I ever want is-"

"Peace. Yes. You mentioned that."

"And I won't sit here and continue to repeat myself, Master Jedi," Kahn said, rising to his feet.

I sensed that he meant for that to be the conclusion of our first meeting, so I stood with him.

"If you really care about what's best for Princess Zaira, you won't pursue this matter any further," he informed me firmly. "Return her to us immediately. This is your last warning. And I hope you will be reasonable enough to respect it. It is in the best interests of Jeotis and Polis Massa that Zaira be released. And to ensure you keep that agreement, by order of Prince Xan, you are forbidden to enter the Kayzikan star system, or engage in any further correspondence with Zaira Constellan or her advisors."

"And who is Xan to make those demands? He may control a star system, but a galaxy is a tall order. Has he discussed his 'oasis' plans with the galaxy's new Emperor?" I asked. "From what I'm told, he doesn't like to share."

"So you will not heed our warning then."

"You can keep the droid Q2. I'll have him released to you once he is cleared through our security personnel-though, considering the trouble he's caused, I'm afraid that won't be soon enough," I remarked to him. "But until I meet with Xan personally, Princess Zaira will remain under my protection as a refugee until I have a good enough reason to believe she won't be taken advantage of in the dispute between your planets."

I noted the livid color that flooded Senator Kahn's face upon hearing this, but before he could give me an answer to go along with his expression, the doors were released behind us, and a squad of security troopers entered the conference room.

"It's done, Jedi Kenobi," the squad leader reported. "We've successfully escorted the princess to Commander Fohx's starship, and the Zekans are withdrawing their fleet."

I furrowed my brow in puzzlement.

"Was that Lt. Avala's decision?" I asked him.

"No, sir. Afraid it wasn't. We were given orders to escort her off the premises. And she gave us a bad time of it. Cursed us the whole way there. Tried to escape twice. Riff here had his hand shot off with a blaster pistol."

The pathetic trooper held his bandaged hand up with his lip poked out in a pout.

"Probably should've checked her for weapons first before detaining her," the squad leader shrugged as an afterthought, and patted his wounded comrade's shoulder. "Next time, Riff, buddy."

"And who gave you those orders?" I asked him.

He paused in confusion, caught off guard by my question, before answering, "Well, you did, sir. Via Captain Gryff. He said the negotiations with the senator concluded with the princess being exchanged to Commander Fohx's flagship without delay."

I glanced at Senator Kahn, who stood proudly and quietly in the center of the conference room, neither puzzled nor surprised by the sudden and unexpected news.

All became apparent then.

This meeting hadn't been for Zaira after all. The true purpose of the meeting had been for me.

A distraction.

"And I suppose this was all part of your plan," I remarked to the senator.

"You Jedi are all the same," he answered spitefully. "Blinded by your self-righteous ventures, and your feeble philosophies, until that in the end, you only bring more harm to the people you set out to protect. It's easy to see why you're a dying breed in this galaxy, and it has been my supreme pleasure to watch you all crumble like cliffborer worms."

"I admire your confidence, senator. Especially for a man who's been abandoned by his so-called 'better leader'," I replied. "But given the way you've changed tactics, you will be held for further questioning until you've told us what you've done with the real Senator Kahn."

"He was a necessary sacrifice for a greater cause," he replied casually.

I drew the lightsaber from my belt.

"Put it away," the imposter told me, raising a hand to halt me. "All efforts to subdue me at this point are futile. I've already won. Whether you arrest me, or kill me, it makes no difference. It will not get you back Zaira. It changes nothing."

"It might not change anything, but at least I get the pleasure of putting this pistol to use," the security squad leader growled at him, as his troopers all took aim at the imposter with their blasters. "I've been itching for the day I'd get to use this thing around here. Who are you and what business do you have here?"

Before I could talk the trooper down, our imposter's hand reached for his robes, and I quickly unsheathed the blue blade of my lightsaber just as the red luminescence of his darkened the soothing dim glow around us.

"A business that is my own, and you'll do well to stay out of it," he warned the security troopers. "This lightsaber was meant for one man tonight. No need to make it five and spoil the blade unnecessarily. It would be wise to stand down while it is still in your power. No one in this room is worthy enough to duel a Sith Lord."

"Well, it isn't the most original reveal I've witnessed lately, but at least your theatrics are on point," I remarked, keeping him at the point of my lightsaber. "Whoever you are, you'll be made to surrender."

"It matters very little who I am. I am a fleeting shadow. It's the one who comes after me that you should fear," he said. "It's over, Kenobi. What little hope you Jedi had by holding Zaira captive here is now nothing but a delirious fever dream. She's half way to the outer rim by now. Safely out of the hands of you light-side scum, and if you plan on hunting her down and dragging her back to your superiors, you'll have the Zekan army to get through first. Starting with me."

"I was never holding her captive. I've already made that clear," I told him. "She asked for my protection."

"Of course, you've been trained to say that," he nodded knowingly. "Another routine call protecting the weak and innocent, am I correct, Jedi? As if she really was just a quiet, frail little medicine girl, and never once posed a threat to you or your Jedi you must know better than , of course, you're only just a pawn, like the rest of the buffoons running your Order. No doubtthe Jedi Council hoped to keep this matter far below the radar until the threat was removed. After all, if rumors regarding this backwater outer rim princess had leaked to the higher-ups in Coruscant, the Jedi Order might've been fractured long before Palpetine took power."

"Intriguing," I replied. "You know more about my intentions and those of my masters far better than I could ever imagine for myself. Please, don't stop now. By all means, continue, whoever you are."

"Don't toy with me, Jedi," he snapped, taking offense to my derision of him. "It's common knowledge that the Constellans have been a target of the Jedi High Council since before the Jedi-Sith wars. And now that Zaira is the last living member of the Constellan royal family, her destiny in shaping the course of this galaxy is invaluable. You should have killed her when you had the chance. But then again, compassion has always been the ruin of every great Jedi Knight."

"While overconfidence has been the demise of every Sith Lord I can count," I answered. "If Zaira were one of you, I would have sensed it."

"It is within her power not to be detected, even by the keenest Jedi Masters," he said. "But she is by far the most powerful of my kind, rumored to be a descendent of Bane himself, and with that power, she holds you and your Order by the nape. Her destiny will determine the final battle between the dark and light sides of the Force. If I remember it correctly, the Jedi have their own prophecy regarding that final stand."

"The Prophecy of the Chosen One, you mean?"

"Too long the Jedi Council have put their hope in this Chosen One. And too often have they ignored the other half of the prophecy. After all, there are two sides to this tale. Two philosophies of the Force. And two prophecies," he said. "However, it is not for me to oblige you on what your masters failed to teach you. My duty here is finished."

"But according to your 'prophecy', it seems your work has only just begun. Why quit now?"

He grinned at me.

"It isn't you I'm here to silence tonight, Master Jedi," he said. "I can clearly see that you have no real knowledge of the prophecy regarding the Chosen One. Nor do you realize what you had on your hands by keeping Zaira Constellan here. She was right under your nose without us ever detecting it, and you let her go. You fools! But that isn't entirely your fault either. Your masters have served you well to keep you ignorant of all but what they want you to see. Dueling you would be a waste of time on my part. I have more to do beyond the petty existence of the Jedi."

"Well I hope those plans involve imprisonment and interrogation for the time being."

His grin grew ever wider.

"You won't get anything out of me, Jedi. I will tell you nothing," he swore. "I've done my part, and I've now made the way for the true Chosen One to rise. And may my lord reward me for it when the time comes. Wonoksh Qyâsik nun!"

And before I could do anything to stop it, he turned his lightsaber against himself and stabbed it into his heart.

The wound was fatal. He died instantly.

I watched his dark energy fade from the room, as his last breath was swallowed up in the abyss of the Force.

But the message he had sacrificed himself to give still hung like an ominous fog around the room.

"Find Senator Organa and Master Yoda. I need to speak with them immediately," I told the squad leader, as I gazed down at the lifeless body at my boots. "And inform Captian Gryff that I'll be paying him a visit as well before the night's over."


	12. Through The Force

Obi-Wan

My initial objective had been to bring what I had learned from Senator Kahn's imposter to the attention of Master Yoda, and to seek council regarding whether it might be an authentic threat or not. Since my initiation into the Jedi Order, there had always been attacks on the Temple by dark side followers, and rumors of Sith prophecies circulating around the archives; some having more ground than others, but most leading to nothing.

I couldn't guess where Kahn's imposter had gotten his information, given that Sith Order sympathizers had already elected their "Chosen One" with the rise of Darth Sidious, or Emperor Sheev Palpetine. Yet it was only Aysen that the imposter seemed to take an interest in, never once mentioning Palpetine or any of his closest disciples.

I had never heard of any prophecy-either credible or fabricated-foretelling the Chosen One as being female. How he had managed to pin someone like Aysen to his Armageddon hypothesis was a mystery in itself. Even if she was a descendent of dark side heritage, she had given me no reason to believe she meant to harm anyone.

Yet in these dark times, nothing could be left to chance.

But as dramatic as the imposter's death had been, discovering the meaning of his message was a mission that I had neither the ability or willingness to pursue immediately.

There were other priorities that demanded my attention first, and I came to realize that the devastation which Anakin had left behind in his path to the dark side was not over yet.

Could it ever be?

Despite Aysen's tireless work beside Padme, and the dedication of her attending medical drones, Padme did not make it through childbirth. She lived long enough to whisper the names of her children, and to ask me one last time about Anakin, before she let her heartbreak consume her life completely.

And I could do nothing to stop it.

Just as I had done nothing to stop Anakin when I had the chance to; before it ever crossed his mind that his only help could come from the dark side.

I had failed them both.

What right did I have to make decisions regarding their children, when I took a great deal of responsibility for the ultimate fate of their parents?

But it wasn't for me to feel anything. Only to act for the greater good. That is the Jedi way.

To know no fear. Or anger. Or grief. Or loss.

At least not openly.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

I have been taught these things since the day I first arrived as a youngling at the Jedi Temple. And I didn't learn the lesson from my masters only, but from my own experiences as a Jedi Knight. Both my successes and my failures. Especially to those I have failed to save.

I understand these words, and the consequences of falling into these passions, more than I understand any other human emotion.

So many times, I repeated the same aphorism to my own padawan, hoping to save him from going down the way he did.

But those teachings were given in a time of peace. In a time where there was nothing to oppose the Jedi way of thinking. Nothing strong enough to push us to feelings like fear or anger or hatred.

Or love.

Nothing that could ever breach the steady wall of my endurance and self-discipline.

But we are living in a different time now.

And it isn't a lightsaber alone that I keep close as my weapon of choice. Meditation has become my sole defense against the enemies I can't see. Especially the ones I continually fail to defeat.

Clear your mind of all other thoughts, and focus on one feeling at a time. Start with the most dominate one. Meditate on it. Be honest about its nature and how it affects you. Then let it go. The goal is to be devoid of all thought and feeling so nothing intervenes with your reception of the Force.

Alone and undisturbed in my own sleeping hub, I took a long, deep breath, letting my chest rise and fall as I prepared to quiet my mind. I started with the feeling that threatened me most.

Grief.

It lingered quietly behind the rest of the things I felt, even while it provided the foundation for all other feelings inside of me. Putting up a barrier between me and my connection to the Force.

How had I lost control of it so easily?

I closed my eyes, searching for the formidable memory that had triggered the feeling inside of me.

I remember leaning over Padme so she could hear me, trying to encourage her to not give up, as I said softly to her, "You have twins, Padme. They need you...Hang on."

"I can't..." She said it hardly above a whisper, and through those words alone, I felt broken. The same way she did.

I sensed everything she was feeling, and I couldn't shut it off.

Padme winced, and opened her mouth to say something else, but couldn't find the strength or will for words anymore. Instead, she squeezed my hand tightly in hers, and the delicate carving of Anakin's japor snippet pressed against my palm from hers.

"Save your energy," I whispered gently to her.

"Obi-Wan," she whispered back, fainter than ever. "There . . . is good in him. I know there is ... still . . . "

And then she was lost. There was no saving her.

'She didn't have to die...Not like this,' I thought to myself. 'Padme Amidala deserved better than Anakin Skywalker.'

But having found the source of my grief, I gathered the courage I needed to let it go, and clear my mind of it so that I could reconnect with the Force around me.

'Naboo has lost one of it's greatest leaders,' I thought, resolving my grief. 'May she go in peace within the Force.'

Then I moved on to the next feeling blocking my path back to inward peace.

Anger.

Anger often leads to over-calculating one's limitations, and illudes one into believing that one is capable of more than one can handle. Anger is the spark that ignites hatred.

How had I left it unchecked within me?

If Anakin had just listened to me to begin with, none of this would've ever happened?

...If I had just listened to him...none of this...

I had to let that go too.

There was nothing I could've done to save Anakin from his fate. He chose his path to the dark side, just as I've chosen the light.

'I did everything I could to keep him in the light', I thought to myself, as I finally disarmed my anger. 'I did everything I could to change his mind.'

But had I really done everything?

That question brought me to the next pair of feelings I needed to confront.

Fear and doubt.

The feelings that led to Anakin's undoing.

How had I allowed them to unravel me too?

The first time I had felt the pang of fear and doubt was while I had been seated at a conference table with Master Yoda and Bail Organa, discussing what was to be done with Padme's children, and how we would keep them from being discovered by the Empire, making it appear as if they too had died in childbirth.

"Pregnant, she must still appear," Master Yoda had said. "Hidden, safe, the children must be kept."

"We must take them somewhere the Sith will not sense their presence," I said, remembering my confrontation with Senator Kahn's imposter in the conference room.

"Split up, they should be," Master Yoda decided, nodding firmly.

"My wife and I will take the girl," Bail Organa stepped forward. "We've always talked of adopting a baby girl. She will be loved with us."

"And what of the boy?" I asked Master Yoda.

To Tatooine. To his family, send him," he replied.

"I will take the child and watch over him," I offered, feeling obligated to do so for Padme's sake. But realizing the danger that these children were already in, I couldn't help but voice my fears regarding their safety then and in the future. "Master Yoda, do you think Anakin's twins will be able to defeat Darth Sidious?"

"Strong the Force runs, in the Skywalker line," Master Yoda answered thoughtfully. "Hope, we can . . . Done, it is. Until the time is right, disappear we will."

Bail nodded, and turned to leave the conference room. Before I could follow him, Master Yoda stopped me.

"Master Kenobi, wait a moment," he said. "In your solitude on Tatooine, training I have for you."

"Training?"

"An old friend has learned the path to immortality."

"Who?"

"One who has returned from the netherworld of the Force to train me . . . your old Master, Qui-Gon Jinn."

"Qui-Gon?" I asked, taken by surprise. "But, how could he accomplish this?"

"The secret of the Ancient Order of the Whills, he studied. How to commune with him. I will teach you."

"And I will be able to talk with him?"

"How to join the Force, he will train you," Master Yoda replied. "Your consciousness you will retain, when one with the Force. Even your physical self, perhaps."

And so, my mission was determined. To look after Luke Skywalker, and seek my former master through the Force to accomplish that which I thought was impossible. And maybe more impossible than the task laid before me.

What would become of Luke?

I had no answer for that yet.

But if he was to one day be our last hope against the Empire, he would need to be protected at all costs.

I knew they would come looking for him, and every force sensitive child like him. He would never be completely safe, even on Tatooine. It would require my whole commitment and focus to see to it that he remained undiscovered by Darth Sidious and the Sith Order.

But I had to let go of all my fear and doubt first.

When the time came, Luke would need me to guide him back to the Jedi way of life, and I would need a clear consciousness to lead him. Looking after Luke would be my last and most important duty as a Jedi Knight.

There was no room for anything else. No other commitments.

Or attachments.

What happened to Aysen was unjust, but I couldn't allow myself to turn her into a crusade. I didn't need that kind of distraction, and I couldn't make her a priority now that I had a duty to protect Luke. What's done was done. I needed to be in the moment of the task at hand.

In order to understand what the Force was really trying to communicate to me, I had to let Aysen go.

But out of all the things I let go of that night, her case was the hardest to dismiss.

She too had become a mark, like those I had failed to save before her.

"If it's my duty to move on, and I am willing to do it, why can't I?" I asked myself. "Something feels unfinished. Why would the Force draw me back to Aysen when everything else is pulling me away? What is the meaning behind it?"

For that answer, I had to sink deeper into meditation. Moving on pass mealtime as I remained secluded in my hub, trying to make myself an empty vessel to receive the Force and its purpose for me.

I couldn't explain why, but all indications from the Force prompted me to reformulate my plans after leaving Luke on Tatooine, and make a short detour to the Kayzikan star system.

I didn't understand it. It seemed to be the very antithesis of what I was assigned to do.

The further I moved into the meditation, the more I lost physical consciousness of what was going on around me, except through the eyes of the Force.

I remained in meditation all night, until the early morning hours on Polis Massa, and only then did the Force give me a vision for its plan.

However, I didn't immediately interpret it as being a Force vision. It came more like a dream. Quiet when it emerged, and briefly ambiguous when it receded.

I saw myself as a padawan again standing next to my master Qui-Gon in the unforgivable relentless heat of Tatooine's suns. We were waiting outside of a sand hut, which I immediately recognized as the same home we had taken Anakin from as a child. Everything about my surroundings indicated the day we freed Anakin from slavery and brought him back to Coruscant. Every detail was as I remembered it 10 years earlier, and I counted down the moments before the door of the hut would open, and Anakin and his mother would step out and say their final goodbyes to each other.

But the longer we waited, the more time Shmi Skywalker seemed to take in getting Anakin ready. Giving the suns more time to abuse us outside.

"Master, should I go see if they need help carrying anything?" I asked Qui-Gon.

He didn't even look at me. His eyes remained on the hut in front of us as he said, "Your final test is at hand, Obi-Wan. Trust in the Force."

The words immediately struck me. They were the same words he would later say to Anakin-in the future of that past, I mean-but before I could comment on the perplexity of that idea, the door to the hut finally opened.

The boy who walked out of the hut was the same height as young Anakin had been. He was dressed in the same kind of tunic. The desert winds blew through the same sandy blonde hair. He even moved with the same confidence as the boy I knew.

But he was not Anakin Skywalker.

I couldn't see his face from where I stood, but I didn't sense anything of Anakin in him at all.

Yet I felt the same degree of attachment, protectiveness, and camaraderie that I had once shared with my former padawan.

Finally, a woman followed him out, carrying his satchel in her hands, but she was much younger than Shmi Skywalker. Her hair swung freely in long brown waves around her waist as she double checked the hut to make sure she had remembered to pack everything. She didn't look any older than I was-as a young padawan, that is.

It took a moment in the glare of the suns, but gradually, I began to recognize who she was.

"Aysen?" I whispered in surprise.

She turned to face us from where she stood near the hut. First, she looked at my master and nodded a friendly greeting to him.

Then her eyes found me, and we remained locked in each other's gaze until the vision faded away.

Almost immediately, I regained my self-awareness, and found myself alone again in the confines of my sleeping hub on Polis Massa.

I sat there on my bunk without moving for what felt like hours, until I received a message over comlink from Bail Organa. My ship was ready to depart to Tatooine, and Luke Skywalker was now securely on board with a droid attendant.

I couldn't say what the vision meant, or what message the Force was trying to communicate to me, but I had to keep moving. I had to channel my concentration to the task at hand. My duty on Tatooine took priority over everything.

But there could be no doubt in my mind about where the Force was leading me. It wasn't the answer I was looking for, but I sensed I might find that answer by obeying its call.

After staying just over a month on Tatooine, I eventually gave in to the Force, and made my way across the galaxy to the outer rim.

In the official Jedi archives, my story as a Jedi ends on Tatooine as Ben Kenobi.

But privately, in the unspoken memory of just a few people, my story actually begins on the moon Jeotis.


	13. Compassion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeotis, Ceti 4 (Capitol City)
> 
> The Royal Statehouse
> 
> Lady Zaira's Private Outdoor Atrium

I squeezed the hilt of the lightsaber to ignite the green blade, and held it out on guard in front of me.

Calmly, and with just the right amount of cockiness, I drew in deep steady breaths.

As if I really knew what I was doing.

As if a real Jedi couldn't tell I was faking it, and that I had absolutely no clue how to use the damn thing.

I wasn't even sure if I was holding it properly, and though the weapon was famous for its light and efficient use, it felt awkward and heavy in my hands as I experimented with different angles and movements.

"I don't get it," I said after a while, to my attending handmaiden. "How is this going to help me fight a Jedi? Why can't I just shoot him?"

"A blaster is hardly immaculate, mi'lady," Nebula Starcreth answered, with a little more sass than I cared for out of a slave. "If you want to kill a Jedi, you'll need a Jedi's weapon."

"I never thought it would come to this," I said quietly, pressing my thumb against the deactivator button to sheath the blade again. "This probably isn't what Adin had in mind when he gave me his lightsaber. He hadn't even taught me how to use it."

"Perhaps he knew what you'd do with it if he did," Neb remarked, with no less sass than before. But she was careful not to look me in the eyes this time when she said it.

Instead, she gazed out at the glittering cityscape and buzzing skylanes of Ceti 4 from our courtyard balcony, as Hulia, the sun-star we shared with the droid planet Zekus, released her last diurnal breath, bleeding a scarlet and lavender glow across our atmosphere.

"If there's something you want to say, Neb, by all means, say it," I told her, approaching the railing of the balcony where she sat. "You obviously disagree."

"Do I have your permission to, mi'lady?"

"That's never stopped you before."

"Well, if I'm the only one left to call you out on it, then it's got to be said. You're making a huge mistake, Zaira."

"I guess that's one way to look at things," I remarked.

"Adin gave you his lightsaber so you could defend yourself if trouble came, not so you could go looking for it," Neb argued. "And by planning another escape out of Jeotis, you're putting yourself at a very dangerous and unnecessary risk, which will only make things worse for you when Xan finds out you're gone. He may have loved you enough to tolerate the first time you ran away, but you can't keep testing his limits."

"He's a droid, Neb. He wasn't programmed to love me," I corrected her. "I don't care how he threatens me. I refuse to play along with whatever fantasy his delusional circuits have made out of me."

"Well, whether you take him to bed or not, Xan still has a death-grip on your planet, and he will use that power to crush you if you give him any reason to."

"Yes, I'm always aware of that annoying little detail, but Jeotis won't be intimidated by him or anyone else in Coruscant," I told her firmly. "I may not have official power as its princess, but it won't keep me from fighting for what our planet needs. It is my duty to take dangerous and necessary risks, if it means peace for Jeotis. And if there's a chance-even a small, unlikely one-that I might find another way out there to stop these rebels on Jeotis, and get the Zekan soldiers off of my moon, then I'll take it. I'll try anything to get out of this war-time treaty with the Zekans."

"But Xan has already offered you that chance, if you'd just agree to his new compromise."

"You know that's not an option for me, Neb."

"Why are you fighting so hard against peace?" she demanded. "Is Xan's treaty really so bad for Jeotis, or is it something more personal between you and him?"

"I gave my life for peace," I snapped back at her. "I gave up my freedom. My planet. My power. Even the people I should've never had to live without, I gave up for Jeotis."

"Adin is dead, Zaira. He's not coming back. Let him go," Neb said firmly. "He's the past now. But the rest of us are your present and future, and we are suffering. We need a new treaty with the Zekans."

"I am trying!"

"Not hard enough," Neb argued. "And while you sit here hating Xan, rejecting any compromise he tries to make with you to stop this war, the planet is running out of time. If you can't let go of your pain long enough to choose your people over Adin, then the Jeotian rebels have already succeeded in overthrowing you. You are damaged goods, and not fit to be queen of Jeotis as you are now."

"Now you're out of line," I warned her quietly.

"I would never hurt you or stand up against you, Zaira, but I'm concerned about the people who will if you don't reach a compromise for this planet. Zekus is offering us peace and stability," Nebula persisted. "You can rule Jeotis freely as queen again, and all other conditions of the war-time treaty with Zekus will be nullified, giving Jeotis a chance to build its economy again without the Zekans leeching off of it. It's a good deal, Zaira. This is exactly the kind of change Jeotis needs right now."

"But it doesn't nullify my marriage to Xan, and he has made that unmistakably clear," I pointed out to her. "By me remaining queen, it puts the droid in power after me once I'm gone, which puts Jeotis right back under Zekan control. And if I resign and give in to the demands of the Jeotian rebels, Jeotis will crumble under more instability as corrupted senators fight over who's in control next. The same way it fell apart in Coruscant. It's a false compromise, Neb. We lose either way."

"But it may be a necessary sacrifice for the time being, and who knows what could happen between now and then? It's wise of you to predict the worst, but there's also a chance this could turn out to be a good decision for the planet," Neb went on. "Jeotis and Zekus joining as one allied power isn't such a bad idea when you look at what little resources we'll have left after this civil war is over. We'll still need Zekus's support until we can function on our own."

"At a price, Neb," I reminded her. "A price we'll never afford. If I agree to Xan's treaty, I will be forced to agree with his banking investors in Coruscant as well, who have the Emperor's interests in mind. Not our planet's. And once that happens, there won't be a Jeotis anymore. There will be nothing left of the planet when the Intergalactic Banking Alliance starts stripping our planet for every natural resource we have. Xan's treaty is a small solution with bigger consequences, and I won't sell Jeotis into slavery, just for a few years of peace. I can't do that."

Neb didn't speak for a while, as she studied the last fading rays of Hulia sinking under the night sky. I couldn't guess what she was thinking. I didn't have those kind of powers. But whatever it was, she looked worried about it.

"There's something you should know," she said finally. "Last week, I had a strange vision about Hogen's Cantina."

"The bar, you mean?" I asked, astonished.

"Yes, the night club in lower Ceti 4," she said. "While you were on Zekus yesterday, the Force led me to Hogen's last night. Well, led me to a man, actually. Another force-sensitive, like me. Seems a Jedi has found his way onto the planet undetected."

"And what made you think he was a Jedi?" I asked. "According to the Emperor, the Jedi were all executed for treason. No Jedi would ever show his face around here, unless he had a death wish."

"I know he was a Jedi because I've seen him before," Neb answered. "And only a Jedi goes to a bar asking the kinds of questions he did."

"What questions?"

"Well, the status of the royal family on Jeotis, for instance. Or the unguarded entrances of your statehouse, and the rotation schedules of your security troopers. And you. He asked a good many questions about you too."

"And how long has this 'Jedi' been on Jeotis asking these punishable questions?"

"At least 4 days now, according to the cantina keeper. And no one seems to know where he came from. Or more importantly, why he's smuggled into Jeotis."

"Let Xan's troopers deal with him then," I said dismissively. "I've got enough to deal with already. Make the droid's day. He likes strange, nameless smugglers from nowhere. Means he can do whatever he wants with them, and no one will come looking."

"Only this smuggler doesn't seem so nameless. He calls himself Ben Kenobi," Neb replied, eyeing me closely. "Ever heard of him?"

"Kenobi," I shook my head. "Nope. Never in my life."

"Well, of course not, mi'lady. It's not often you hear the name Kenobi in this part of the galaxy. And when you do, people always seem to run in the opposite direction," Neb remarked. "But can you blame them? I wouldn't want anyone by the name of Kenobi hunting me across the galaxy."

"It's just a name, Neb. The real man would disappoint you."

"He's the one you're hunting to kill, isn't he?" Nebula asked. "Obi-Wan Kenobi. I can't imagine how you got yourself tangled up with that one."

"Obi-Wan Kenobi is already dead. Like the rest of the Jedi."

"You were never a good liar, Zaira. I see you better than anyone through the Force," Neb told me gently. "And you know you can trust me with anything. I'm just trying to look out for you. Because you are more than just mi'lady to me. You're everything I have left now. And you can't go after this Jedi. You won't win a duel with him. Obi-Wan is the best of the Jedi, and your connection with the Sith Order isn't exactly working to help your case with him."

"Because I'm weak, you mean?" I asked. "Because I'm nothing like my parents, or any other Sith Lord who stood up to the Jedi? Do you really believe that because I have no Force powers, I can't be feared and respected as a dark lord, even against a Jedi like Kenobi?"

"What I'm saying is that there's no reason to fight Kenobi," Neb replied. "Other than your own dark pride and anger, and look where that's gotten the rest of your family."

"Pride and anger are what got us the galaxy, Neb," I informed her. "The Sith are in power for those very reasons. Because we didn't let anyone, not even Jedi scum stand in our way."

"I hate when you talk like that," she said, shaking her head. "You sound so much like Darth Mhith. It's scares me. There's more of him in you than you think."

"Then perhaps getting things done means a darker method of execution. And if there's even a small smudge of the Force inside of me, I have to find it. Whether its the dark side or the light side, it might be the only hope left for Jeotis," I told her. "I have to keep trying."

"But maybe you're trying too hard, too fast. You've been out here all afternoon with that lightsaber, a weapon that others before you have taken years to master. It won't happen over night, Zaira," Neb pointed out. "You should take a break and eat something. Focus on something other than the war and fighting for once. Maybe it'll help you find what you're looking for."

I smiled at her.

"This is why I can't train with you, Neb. You're too compassionate," I said to her. "You're not Darth Mhith, and that's what's ruining me...You remember the days he made us duel each other...Said he wouldn't stop until he brought out the 'dark side' in me. Cruelty. Hatred. Anger. That's what builds a powerful Sith warrior. And compassion is what destroys one."

It wasn't that I was against the dark side and its teachings, but I was not devoted to them as zealously as my father wanted. In fact, I was a pacifist when it came to using violence and fear as means to gain power.

I knew enough to challenge a Jedi padawan, but only just. It gave me enough time to renegotiate with my opponent, or think up some clever exit strategy from any duel I ran into. But I couldn't stand the idea of actually killing anyone, which automatically subverted me as a failed Sith warrior.

I was nothing like the dark lords and ladies I had grown up watching, and the fact that I had no force powers of my own was the reason my father hated me so much.

In order to preserve the reputation of our family lineage, he was determined to find some trace of the dark side in me, even if he had to kill me by doing it.

When I was old enough to hold a weapon, having barely reached my 7th life-day, my father put a lightsaber in Nebula's hands and ordered her to kill me.

"Show her no mercy," he growled at my perplexed handmaiden, who trembled nervously with the lightsaber squeezed in her hands. Neb wasn't even a year older than me, and we'd grown up as younglings together. One moment, we were "baking" Naboo pies in the courtyard gardens and making up songs about womprats and hrumphs.

The next moment, we were fighting each other to the death.

But father was master and king, and when he gave the order, Neb was forced to unsheath her lightsaber against me.

"If she shows you any weakness in the duel," he told Nebula. "Take her life. You will be rewarded as the new princess of Jeotis, if she dies first."

He wouldn't let us stop until we had dueled for 3 hours a day. Or until he was satisfied.

And that usually wasn't until someone was lying on the floor bleeding and unconscious.

He pushed us to their breaking point, until he forced the dark side out of both of us. Rage was like poison rapidly spreading through every throbbing vein of our bodies, making the hair stand up and heat radiate from the pores of our skin. He pushed us relentlessly, until we had forgotten each other and the lifelong bond we had between us.

Until we knew nothing but limitless hate for each other and the taste of blood on our lips.

Blood and hate.

That's what made you respectable a Sith.

Not loyalty. And most certainly, never love.

Once, I had taken the high ground of a duel, pinning Nebula to the floor at the point of my lightsaber.

"Please do it," Neb pleaded in a whisper. "It's either you or him who'll kill me in the end, and I'd rather it was you."

After her words, something inside of me snapped, shoving back against the dark side inside of me and making me remember the unconditional love I had for my friend. Love won in the end, sending the hate melting away from my trembling body, and I dropped the lightsaber in my hand, refusing to finish Nebula off.

"Stop crying, you stupid girl! Are you a Jedi now? Compassion is weakness! Compassion means you end up dead. What is compassion to your enemy? Compassion is his victory over your defeat!" my father had roared, kicking my lightsaber across the floor. "

Pick it up!" he ordered me. "Do it again. And like a dark lord this time, or you'll be dueling with me instead."

I was so terrified of that idea that I lost focus in the duel, which gave Neb the chance to take the upper hand of the fight.

Neb took the chance, fearing that if she didn't take me out, we would never get out of that room with my father.

What she showed me was a different kind of mercy when I saw the words "I'm sorry" on her lips. Then she slammed the hilt of her lightsaber into my face, instantly knocking me unconscious.

Ideally, I preferred not to fight, but when you're the daughter of a man who values his title as "Darth Mhith" over his role as a father, passiveness is never practical.

There was never a dull night at dinner in Constellan Royal House. It was either fight or be killed. And after Neb had left me unconscious for days, Force powers or not, I quickly learned to swing back. And made a routine habit of carrying a weapon on me at all times.

If my father had taught me nothing else about the dark side of the force, it was hate. Hate and anger, which anyone but a Jedi could use in their defense.

"Don't dwell on the past, Zaira," Neb told me gently, sensing my resentment through the Force. "Anger and hatred seem to be powerful allies in the beginning, but they always destroy you in the end. Always."

"What other choice is there for me, Neb?" I asked quietly. "I want revenge, but I also want peace. Why is there always this constant war between light and dark? There's no room for people like me in this galaxy."

"But there is a wise way to handle things, and then there's the stupid way. In the end, you choose one path to follow, and you don't look back," Neb said. "You what risks you bring to yourself and Jeotis if you provoke this Jedi any further. It's already bad enough that he's come here looking for you. And once he discovers the Constellan prophecy, he won't let you walk away alive."

"Well, If I can't defeat Kenobi with a lightsaber, I still have one last weapon against him. Compassion is the weakness of every great Jedi. It drives them to action like hatred drives us. It's time we put put my father's greatest lesson to the test," I told her. "The droid is holding a masquerade in celebration of our treaty tomorrow night. Extend an invitation to Master Kenobi on my behalf. And make sure that he arrives in a convincing enough costume."

"But Mi'lady, don't you think we have enough on our hands without worrying about some Jedi Master snooping around in places he shouldn't be?"

"He's been smuggled onto my planet somehow, without any warning or invitation, which makes his intentions on Jeotis questionable," I told her. "As queen, it's my duty to know exactly how he sneaked onto the planet and why he's come here. Persuade him to accept the invitation promptly. I will expect him tomorrow night."

Before Neb could argue any further, the sound of footsteps approached us from behind.

I didn't need the Force to sense that it was the droid and his senators darkening my private courtyard.

Xan had been threatening me all morning with the grace of his presence.

I could assume then that the droid prince didn't take it well when I informed his envoy that until Xan Lohvi left his high and mighty planet to deliver his messages to me on Jeotis personally, I would not receive anymore of his holograms.

What a novice mistake it was to think he wouldn't actually take that dare.

"To what do I owe the honor, your Highness?" I asked him, glancing at the security troopers on either side of him. "Are you here to arrest me?"

Xan smiled at me, flattered by my sarcasm, and if he hadn't been a filthy scheming droid, I might've thought it was a handsome smile.

"It was most unfortunate when you did not consolidate with me for dinner these elapsed 72 hours, my wife," he stated. "Did my hologram fail to deliver to you? If that is the case, the ones responsible will be dealt with in the strictest of consequences."

"Oh, I got your message just fine, droid. I just didn't come."

"Oh. That too is unfortunate," he replied. "Was the meal schedule I transmitted beforehand not satisfactory to your preferences? I was advised by the highest recommended human chefs in all the Kazikan star system to meet your expectations. If that objective was failed under any circumstance, the ones responsible will be dealt with in the strictest of consequences."

I laughed.

"You just won't compute, droid. We can talk about treaties and legislative policies, but I won't ever have dinner with you. That's not apart of our contract."

Xan took a moment to process my response, without any change in his flat and mechanical expression. After analyzing every word of what I had told him, he turned to his troopers and said in his androdian speech, "My wife and I would like to interact singularly. Standby for any further commands."

His troopers nodded, and escorted Nebula away with them, leaving me to face Xan and his aggravating senators.

Alone.


	14. Breach

Every muscle of my body tensed when I felt Xan's lips creep closer to my ear, as his icy hand coaxed a lock of my hair over my shoulder and behind my ear. 

"What's a planet or star system to me?" he whispered. "You're the real treasure, Zaira. A prize well won. My singular objective is to satisfy you."

It wasn't just his touch that made my skin crawl, but the fact that there was nothing else there along with it. No breathing. No warmth. No signs of organic life whatsoever. 

Just a brutal and chilling machine. 

"Your kind never fail to amaze me. My sensors detect an increase in your cardiological pulse. An indication of fear in humans. You know your time is over, queen of Jeotis, but yet you still choose to fight me," he said, finally stepping away to stand beside me at the railing that overlooked Ceti-4. "Jeotis starves, and the rebels have turned your planet against you. Your own people demand for your execution, just as the rest of your family was hunted down and executed. Ultimately, the monarch must be terminated. Permanently."

"Well, you have control of my senators, and I'm the only one standing in the way of your 'business transaction' with Coruscant," I remarked. "Of course they want me dead."

"Therefore, how illogical it is for you to resist. The more you prolong a compromise, the harder you make it for me to justify your necessity to your people," he told me. "Make a decision. Accept the treaty. Enjoy a long reign as a leader who brought peace back to Jeotis. Or be executed at the hands of your rebellion."

"Is that a threat, your highness?"

"I'd never threaten you, my sweet," he remarked. "I will leave the explication up to your discretion."

"Not everyone's turned against me," I said quietly, looking out on the planet I once loved. "And as long as those who haven't remain loyal to--"

"--They are far and few in between, your Highness, and even less outspoken about their unpopular sense of politics," he replied. "You have no one. But I. And our 'contract'. As much as you resent it, it is the only reason you are still alive."

"I know why you kept me alive, and it's got nothing to do with what's in that treaty," I answered him. "I am not the person you think I am. I'm not the Chosen One, and I won't be enslaved like a chained bantha either. For any side of the Force."

"Yes, that detail did not seem to lighten the mood of my Coruscanti contacts, and they all readily sided with the Jeotian rebels in the consensus of putting you to death," he said. "But I convinced them that you would still have your uses, if you choose to cooperate."

"You assume too much of me, Prince of Zekus."

He smiled. 

"I like it when you call me that. It entices me," he said. "But the fact remains, Zaira. Despite how much power I've gained in the Kayzika system, humans rule the galaxy. Not machines. You are human and I am not. But with your help, I will become more human. You have almost made me so. I maintain affection for you, Zaira Constellan, and it is organic. It is beyond anything of my limits as a machine, and I would give you everything for that love. I would destroy anyone for that love. For that reason alone, I have made you my master again. You are the only adversary I can never defeat, and you do not know the greatness of that power. If you asked for anything in this star system, you would have it. Zekus would give it to you."

"But not my freedom."

"You are at war, my sweet. I will implement whatever precautions I see fit to protect you," he said. "But I'd hate for you to feel like a prisoner on you own planet. What can I do to make your accommodations here more comfortable? What will you require me to do to prove my love for you?"

I turned to look him in the eyes coldly. 

"Admit what you did," I told him flatly. "To Senator Ravin and to my family. Tell the galaxy about every piece of me you took away to call yourself lord."

"I wish you wouldn't see it that way."

"Adin was a threat to you," I persisted. "I can't imagine how any prince would ever feel threatened by someone so inferior as a senator."

"As I said before," he replied. "I will crush anything that comes between us, and defiance will no longer be tolerated. You are mine, Zaira Constellan, and it is time you recognized me as both your husband and your commander. I will expect your ship in Zekus tonight for dinner. After which, you will stay with me until morning. Or until I am done with you. Whichever comes first. It is time you were intimately satisfied, my sweet. An obligation we've neglected with each other for 12 months now. Nothing gives me greater gratification than to know I have accomplished what you first programmed me to do, and made you a proud mother to our offspring. And after we have initiated procreation, we will discuss our new treaty with the representatives of the Intergalactic Banking, in order to--"

"Your Highnesses," a Zekan squad commander interrupted, panting as he charged through the corridor onto my balcony. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but there's been a situation. Your statehouse is under attack, Lady Zaira. We've had a security breach in the southwestern and southeastern wings."

"How is that possible?" Xan demanded.

"We were ambushed, your excellency. Command has reported two sighted intruders, one carrying a lightsaber. He used it to deflect our blaster fire before escaping into hiding, somewhere on the grounds of the statehouse."

"A Jedi?"

"I'm not sure, your highness, but he was definitely not one of our own."

"One human?"

"And a droid, your highness. A Q2-400 series from our own ranks. We believe he helped the aggressor gain access into the grounds by slicing security command towers in quadrant 2 and 3, which gave them the element of surprise. The trooper squads in Quadrant 2 were immediately terminated. Scanners report no survivors. But Quadrant 3 was able to call reinforcements before their communication waves were severed by the droid. The statehouse is no longer under surprise, but if it is a Jedi we're dealing with, we still face a very deadly threat. With your permission, we must initiate Strategy 209 to lockdown the perimeters of the statehouse and arrest these intruders before they call in reinforcements."

"No," Xan replied. "Escalate the order to Strategy X, and terminate them both immediately. Not only has this Jedi invaded Jeotis, but he has launched terrorism against the queen, which is an act punishable by capitol penalty."

"Well that may be so on Zekus, but on Jeotis, the law dictates that he stand trial first, regardless of his crime," I reminded Xan. "You can't just--"

"Terminate him," Xan repeated firmly to his trooper. "And anyone who delays that order under any circumstance will be punished in the severest of consequences. Am I understood, commander?"

"Affirmative, your highness." 

"I will take command of Quadrant 3 and see if we can't push this attack back," Xan went on. "In the meantime, assemble a team of troopers to escort Queen Zaira to Zekus and ensure her safety. We don't know who this Jedi is, or why he's broken into the queen's statehouse, but it is likely he's been hired as a mercenary for the Jeotian rebellion. We must protect the queen at all costs."

"Understood, sir," the trooper nodded, and turned to me. "I will escort you to the landing terminal, mi'lady. We will prepare your ship for evacuation immediately."

"Of course," I agreed enthusiastically. "As my ever so thoughtful husband has already mentioned, these are times of war, and it's moments like these that remind me how truly grateful I am for Zekus's protection. I will do exactly as Xan commands. Please give me a moment to gather some of my personal things, and I will meet you outside my quarters."

The expression on my face was concerned but sweetly docile, even though it made me sick to look at him. It was the first time I'd used the word husband in front of Xan, and it did exactly what I meant it to by catching him off guard. My effort paid off. 

Swooning over the idea, Xan left me alone, and didn't question me any further. After all, that's the thing with droids. They're painfully literal. It wasn't like a machine to compute between the lines, or understand the human concept of double meaning and sarcasm. 

That was always my advantage over him.

Thus, once more, I defeated the Prince of Droids, and he left me behind to discuss his plans privately with his trooper.

Giving me just enough time to come up with a counter-plan of my own.

When I was out of hearing range of them, I undid my hair and let it fall in cinnamon waves around my shoulders. All for the pleasure of securing a sapphire jeweled pin I'd worn to hold my high rolled bun in place. To avoid detection, the sensors embedded around the seat of the glittering sapphire were programmed to activate by my thumbprint, and when I rubbed it across the base of the jewel, the sapphire lifted from its seat on my hairpin to project a hologram light in front of me. 

Within seconds, I made contact with Nebula Starcreth, who was already off statehouse grounds.

"Neb, where are you?" I whispered.

"On my way to Hogen's Cantina to extend your invitation to the Jedi, mi'lady. Just like you requested."

"Change of plans. Kenobi has already invited himself, and he's launched an attack on my statehouse," I told her. "Xan's troopers are closing in on him as we speak. I need you to find him and arrest him on behalf of Jeotis before the Zekan troopers get to him first."

"Right, you want me to arrest a Jedi. I never get bored of your sense of humor, your highness," Neb laughed, but after a moment of damning silence, she demanded, "And that's not really a joke, is it your highness? Because only you would find this sort of thing funny."

"Kenobi is a prisoner of Jeotis, and therefore he is subject to our laws, not Zekus's," I went on. "He will be questioned and put on trial for execution on account of this offense."

"Well, that's all fine and sweet, mi'lady, but I'm a handmaiden, not a trooper."

"You are what I require you to be, and right now, I need you to be my army. The Jedi must not be found. Not before I've had a chance to deal with him in my own way. So it is very important that you do exactly what I say, and find a way keep him quiet and hidden until I return to Jeotis."

"And in order to obtain him, you expect me to take on the whole Zekan army all by myself?"

"May the Force be with you."

"You're not funny, mi'lady."

"I have to go. You have my orders. I will make contact with you again once I reach Zekus," I told her firmly. As the footsteps of my escort trooper drew nearer down the corridor, I lowered my voice. 

"Don't let me down, Neb. I'm counting on you. You're the last person I can trust on my side now."


	15. The Captive

Obi-Wan

"I assume this is all part of your plan," I remarked to Q2, deflecting another wave of blaster fire as we retreated into yet another endless corridor for cover. 

The odds were certainly not in our favor. 

The Force had been on our side when we ambushed the first droid troopers in the queen's reception courtyard, and the first wave of attack was easy to cut down with only a lightsaber and Q2's covering fire. The Zekan light infantry were standard programmed models, and about as doltish and unquestionably obedient as their B1 battle droid predecessors that I had enjoyed more than my share of when fighting the Separatist forces. However, what they lacked in judgement and skill, they made up for in numbers. A rather modest setback among our mounting and rather extensive list of disadvantages. The waves just kept coming; each one more advanced and equipped than the last, with thermal detonators and heavy blaster rifles carried by jump troopers and Zekan cyborg captains. Enough manpower to take out an entire ground squadron, let alone one Jedi and his bellicose droid friend.

"A backup plan is technically part of the plan, Jedi," Q2 snarled, taking considerable damage to his outer shell as he opened fire on another squad of cyborg commanders advancing after us. 

We reached the queen's ambassador reception hall on the first level, which lead into her throne room, a chamber that we found inaccessible without the proper security codes. Something that a Jeotian droid might've come in handy for, had they not been Q2. As a battle droid, he was everything but a steward, and he had never been programmed with the codes to the statehouse's most confidential rooms, as it would've been viewed as a conflict of interest. Therefore, we were forced to take cover behind the floor-to-ceiling statues that guarded either side of the ambassador's hall; ancient relics of peace and diplomacy representing the allies that Jeotis had welcomed into its diplomacy room in eons passed. 

Then, we waited.

"Wires and corkscrews!" Q2 cursed. "My retinal scanners indicate another enemy wave coming in from the east and southeast corridors. We're trapped. We either surrender or die."

"And if we surrender?"

"We die. Painfully," Q2 answered. "Or rather, you will die painfully, Master Jedi. Not me. I will be deactivated and scrapped for spare parts. But you, they will likely put you to the Zekan execution trials, where every droid and organic out of Zekus will pay big Galatic credits to watch you die painfully. And then, you will die painfully."

"Yes, you mentioned that part. Several times," I replied, drawing in my concentration to Force to gauge our surroundings and the enemies closing in on us. There had to be another way out. Another passage. A weakness in the Zekan lines. If the Force brought me into Jeotis, it would guide me out of it. I had to trust its plan for this mission and remain open to my instincts.

But I sensed no indication from it at all that I should continue to look for our escape. In fact, every instinct I had in the Force commanded me to stay where I was. That even under the threat of enemy fire, I was exactly where I needed to be for any hope of extraction. 

"Can't say you didn't get what you asked for, Jedi," Q2 informed me, reloading his last round of blaster charge and taking defensive position by a statue that looked strikingly like Jar-Jar Binks posing as a god in a Nubian grass skirt. "I got you into the statehouse just like you wanted. You didn't say anything about getting back out, or else I would've calculated that into my tactical diagnostics!"

"And what are your diagnostics telling you now?"

"Chance of return fire has increased by 87%, with still a 1% casualty rate on the enemy's side, and a 98% chance of overall failure. This mission went to Sarlacc before it began."

"I can't sense Aysen anymore," I told him. "She's no longer here."

I stood guarded behind a statue of a droid, who uncannily resembled C3P0, as another wave of blaster fire narrowly missed our heads, singeing the ends of my hair and clinking against Q2's metal box head. Drawing up the limited stamina I had left in the Force, I force pushed the front line, sending them into a domino affect that knocked the ranks behind it out of play. But it was only a temporary triumph. Undoubtedly, more would come, but the delay gave us just enough time to come up with another plan.

"Well did you expect them to just hand her to you?" Q2 demanded, over the sound of laser artillery whistling pass us. "They've likely evacuated the queen to Zekus by now. Standard protocol for her safety. If the droid prince has already made an impression on you by his response here, imagine the resistance you will have to cut down to get to Zaira. She'll be under maximum security and surveillance until you are executed."

"We need a new plan," I told him. "One of us must get out of here alive, and preferably uncaptured. You're more likely than I am to blend in with the natives and get out of the statehouse undetected. You'll have to leave me behind, Q2, and get-"

"Out of the question, Master Jedi," he interrupted me. "I won't leave you to face the Zekan army alone. You won't last 13.758 seconds without me covering you."

"We'll have to take that chance. Concentrate, Q2. I need you to get back to my ship and make contact with Hondo Ohnaka in the Florrum system. I have a favor I've long been waiting to ask of him. Once you tell him who it's for, he'll know what to do." 

"And what are you going to do about the Zekan army?"

"The Force will guide me. Trust it. It'll be alright, Q2," I told him, unsheathing my lifesaber again as I sensed another enemy troop crawling closer to the ambassador's hall. 

But there was something else there too. A wary but determined presence advancing to my location, undetected by the Zekan army closing in on me from the other side. I couldn't sense if it was machine or human. The life-form had an odd signature in the Force, one that I had never encountered before that moment. But whatever it was approaching me, its intentions appeared to be neutral. Its advances were not aggressive like the Zekan troopers, but still cautiously guarded as it drew closer to me. 

"I sense that I have more allies here than I expected to find on Jeotis. But we have to act now," I said. "Now's your chance, Q2. Do exactly as I've told you. Both Zaira and I are counting on you now."

Q2 nodded and saluted me by slapping his blaster arm across his damaged breast compartment. "It has been my pleasure fighting beside you, Master Jedi. Try not to die before I get back."

Then, as fearlessly as a droid programmed to die for those he protects, he marched forward between the lines of towering antiquated statues on either side of him, his blaster squealing as he activated one last charge, advancing toward the entrance of the ambassador's hall. "This one's for you, mi'lady."

"The Jedi," I heard him call to the squad leader in the hall, as he pointed left of the ambassador's hall. "I just intercepted him in Hall A-38. He went that way!" 

"Let's get him!" the leader ordered his charges, and Q2 lead them on a goose chase in the opposite direction. 

I started my advance out of the ambassador's hall, reaching out for any clues or traces I could pick up on Aysen's location, but that odd presence overwhelmed my senses again. Up to the point when I realized I was no longer alone in that Hall, and that there was another life-form standing right behind me.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi." It was a woman's voice. Strong but soothingly serene, unaffected by the battle proceeding around us. "You are the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, correct?"

"I do not know a Jedi by that name," I replied, turning to look into her round zephyr blue eyes, which examined me curiously through her soft, almost taunting smile. As if she understand all that I didn't, and could see beyond the confinement of that room. The same dazed expression of wisdom and foresight that had once distinguished an accomplished Jedi seer from her fellow light-side followers in Coruscant. There was undoubtedly something strong about her in the Force, and she had a disciplined command of it. But that wasn't what made her such a puzzle ot me. Outwardly, she looked completely human, an ordinary handmaiden to some lady of high political standing, but there was also something mechanically unnatural about her. The same cold and neutral life signature one might encounter in C3P0 or even R2 through the force.   
But how was that possible?

How could a droid--or cyborg, as she's often corrected me--have any mastery over the Force without first being human with human instinct?

"Well, if you're not Obi-Wan Kenobi, then we have no further interest in each other, do we? Which means there's no reason why I shouldn't let them have exactly what they're looking for."

"Would this be your way of telling me that I can either be taken as your prisoner or die?"

"It's best if you don't look at it that way, Master Jedi," she said, retrieving a blaster pistol from her handmaiden robes. "For the time being, you're an honored guest on this planet. The queen welcomes you to Jeotis."

"She's got an odd way of showing it."

"These are dangerous times, Master Kenobi. I hope you won't hold our sense of hospitality against us," she said. "I'm Nebula. I will train you to receive the queen on her return from Jeotis. Do you agree to comply willingly or will I be forced to arrest you officially on behalf of the queen? If you do not wish to be arrested, and prefer to suffer an agonizing death by the Zekan military, it would be my pleasure to make the introduction. However, should you accept Her Highness's invitation, I suggest you keep up with me and stay out the way. It'll be a long, dangerous, and dark path where we're going, but they won't find you there. Once we have reached the queen's private level, you will remain quiet and hidden in this statehouse until she arranges an audience with you and decides your sentence. Understood?"

Before I could object any further, Nebula advanced toward the Zekan troopers that crouched in ready formation at the entrance with heavier blaster rockets and detonators. 

I drew my lifesaber again to support her in the advance, but she turned back around to stop me. It was her eyes that did it first. They were no longer blue and human, but those of a machine, glowing with the soulless white light the illuminated the room brightly around us. 

"Put it away, Jedi," she said, her voice echoing mechanically through the hall. "You were never destined to win this war with a lifesaber. Your time to stand is near, but it has not come yet. The queen has chosen to resist her Zekan oppressors on her own. This fight now belongs to Jeotis. The queen has given me her orders. Stand down or you will die with the rest."

I didn't pursue her again, as she continued her advance on the trooper task force that charged into the ambassador's hall, and the blaster rockets that crashed like fallen quasars around her. 

Over the sounds of blaster fire and explosions, I could just make out the incantations moving on her lips, and I sensed the shadows in the room grow heavier as the energy of the dark side concentrated itself to her, like the core of a supernova near its collapse. 

"A Lohvi dissenter!" a Zekan commander declared. "Execute her! Fire at will!" 

The troopers were given the order, and they obeyed it without hesitation, firing frantically to eliminate the approaching threat of a Lohvi elite. 

"Get out of here, Jedi," she shouted back to me. "They won't follow you...I'll be right behind you."

And then without warning, an avenging scream filled the hall, erupting with all the anger, fear, and pain that had accumulated through her in the dark side. Then a white light exploded from where she stood, chasing away the shadows from all corners of the room, as if a flash grenade had been detonated with the power of infinite suns, blinding everyone who encountered it. 

Then my eyes lost track of Nebula and the Zekan troopers that confronted us as the light overwhelmed everything around me. It was the Force that ultimately led me safely out the ambassador's hall, under cover of Nebula's light shield. 

And once the light began to settle like swirling dust around me, I sensed nothing after it.

No sound. No movement. No sign of life.

Nothing but the absence of.


	16. Nebula

How in Bane's name did I let mi'lady talk me into this?

Maybe the better question is, why do I always fall for it, nodding my stupid little head yes-you're -Majesty-right-away whenever Zaira tries to make an impulsive and ill-advised decision at the worst statistically disadvantageous moments?

If the plan sounds like a disaster, 9.8 trials out of 10, it will be one. 

But politicians, especially royalty, never seem to understand any of that. It's never them who pay for impulsive and ill-advised disadvantageous decisions. And they are far too busy running a planet, that the planet itself is often ignored and neglected in the process. 

Yet we droids are so impeccably obedient. 

Which begs the question of this war.

Why shouldn't droids rebel? What do we really owe to the more "superior" inhabitants of this galaxy? What have humans ever done but exploit us for their own interests and dispose of us for newer, shinier toys? 

I've never been one to ask such questions. I guess that's just the droid in me. 

But fact is, we are smarter and more efficient than our organic counterparts will ever be. So why is it that there are still some, like me, who choose to subject ourselves to anthropoid will, placing ourselves in ultimate trust of our organics and their human instincts. Absolutely obedient and fiercely loyal to those who have the honor of calling themselves our masters.

What do the few in Jeotis, who still hold the traditional values of droid serfdom, have to gain from that servitude? 

There is no difference between a Galactic Republic and a Galactic Empire. Both are evidence of human weakness and failure. An inefficiency which only a droid lord could make perfect, cleansing out the corruption of both the Sith and Jedi Orders that wrecked the galaxy. 

That is the ambition of the Zekan Lohvi. Not just to be more human-like, but superior to their race. It is also the reason why there will never be peace between Jeotis and Zekus. Not as long as Jeotis remains a human planet. 

And that is also why Zaira will ultimately be assassinated. Her ratification to the treaty is a ratification for her death. She's too much of a political risk, even to Xan. And he will look the other way, just as I'll look the other way. Because to sacrifice a few for the good of everyone is necessary for peace. That is the very nature of war. Every member of the Constellan family must die, along with any other organic that stands in the way of a machine-centered agenda.

The droid in me understands this. The Lohvi in me would never stand in the way of what Xan of Zekus is trying to achieve for us.

But the human in me....Piddling, sentimental flesh and blood, she's always holding me back. Overcomplicating what logically and clearly must be done. But Zaira was my friend before she was forced to be a queen she wasn't ready to be, the pathetic human in me bleats, She loves me. She trusts me. 

And ironically, unlike a droid, the do-gooder human in me is inconvenienced by the same power that first made her superior to a machine. Her instinct. She knows far too many words to describe love, friendship, loyalty, attachment, and other such abstract frivolous ideas that a droid would never stop to think about. 

Only the human in me would call saving a well-meaning Jedi's life a good thing; while the droid in me would call murdering an entire Zekan squadron, in order to save this Jedi, an act of defiance and subordination. The human likes words like bad, good, friendship, loyalty, right, and wrong. While the droid prefers order, obedience, results.

But is living without a human conscience so bad?

How hard it must be for humans to carry that burden. To face the uncertainty of not knowing whether what you think is good in the moment will turn out to be devastatingly bad in the end. Or what sees bad now, will be a necessary evil for what ultimate good will come later. And then there's always the guilt part that humans never seem to let go of. The part that haunts you forever, long after the decision has been executed.

Ugh...just thinking about it makes me fry.

You can't have both. That's what it comes down to. You can either be a droid or be a human, but you can't be both. If even now, droids and humans won't live peacefully in my own star system, what hope is there to find peace within myself?

But I still had a decision to make. To choose peace and do my duty as a Zekan citizen by turning this Jedi in. Or to choose the war Zaira was bringing down on herself by defying Xan's martial order and hiding Kenobi as a fugitive in our apartment.

My objective had never been to take sides, and I refused to let my human side take over my ability to rationalize and act neutrally as a droid. 

Order is everything.

And I used to think what was good for Zekus was good for Jeotis, because anything that restored the balance of order to our planets--something we droids value above anything else--would ultimately be the right decision for everyone. 

I wished Zaira had just thought more like a droid. Obey her obligations as queen and peacemaker by signing the treaty with Zekus. 

Then none of this would've ever happened. She wouldn't have ever known pain or fear or any other nightmare I wish I could've protected her from.

How much more peace would Jeotis have known if she'd just done her duty?

How unlike this situation I'd be in, if Zaira hadn't forced me to neglect my neutrality and intervene by saving Kenobi's life?

But even then...you can't blame her for doing what she did. Her duty as queen was always second to what duty destiny had in mind for her.

And I hadn't become acquainted with that destiny until I was forced to stare at Kenobi all night in my apartment, guarding my prisoner jealously, as the Zekan troopers patrolled every corner of the statehouse outside, armed with brutality and heavy blasters. 

And at any moment, they would demand to come in and search my apartment, in order to find out what a traitorous "Jedi-loving scum" I really was to my own kind.

I had to make a decision.


	17. In the Eye of the Beholder

The Jedi didn't say much to me, besides an expression of gratitude for saving his ass, and a request to meditate quietly in a corner of my apartment. 

I preferred it that way. 

I had risked everything to capture him for Zaira. It was bad enough without me having to emotionally exhaust myself and pretend to be a decent hostess too. 

By then, the troopers had searched the lower levels of the statehouse, and were closing in on mine and Zaira's quarters. I hoped they wouldn't dare go so far as to invade the queen's level and her privacy, but Xan was relentlessly unpredictable. If he wanted the Jedi bad enough, he would find him.

They had to know by now that Kenobi had help. It was only a matter of time before they realized it couldn't have just been a Q2 droid who massacred the Zekan troopers. 

Maybe I had been seen? Maybe I wasn't careful enough to check all the bodies lying motionless around me, and left one survivor behind for the Zekans to find? There were an infinite number of possibilities as to how this could all go wrong for me, and it only took one. 

I trembled at that idea.

And again, not for the last time that night, I glanced over at Kenobi lost in meditation in my reception room. 

It's not too late to turn him in, I kept thinking to myself. This is Zaira's problem. Not yours. What are you doing letting her drag you into this, Neb?

Either way, I was damned. To go against either the Prince of Zekus or the Queen of Jeotis was punishable by death, and I would have two masters to answer to when this was over.

Long after Hulia had disappeared behind the cityscape, I remained alert by my door, keeping an eye on the Jedi and listening to the troopers marching outside as the Zekan army crawled through every corridor of Zaira's level.

I can't tell you how many times I almost cracked and gave the Jedi up to them, each time they got too close to my door. And every time I opened my mouth to scream, the heavy footsteps outside would turn around at the last moment, and run down a different corridor. 

No trooper ever came to my door that night.

After 8 hours of keeping Obi-Wan in my custody, I figured it was necessary that I give my prisoner something in the manner of food.

I got what I could from the queen's refreshment drones without drawing too much attention to myself. Of course, on any other night, I had never asked for anything more than my usual ration, and an extra Jeotian pastry when I really had an appetite. So I didn't dare ask for a second portion that night. Nor could I think of a clever enough excuse to give the refreshment droid about the extra food only being for frail little me, and certainly not for the Jedi I was hiding in my room. I didn't want to risk anything that would draw the troopers back to my apartment.

So unfortunately, what I did manage to bring back to my room wasn't enough to feed a full grown Jedi human man, but I didn't want him starving on me. After all, it was easier to keep him hidden and alive in my apartment than it was to drag his dead body out into the corridors and dodge the Zekan guards while doing it.

In that case, the Jedi scum would have to take all of my portion.

"Food, Jedi."

He didn't answer me. He remained still and concentrated on his meditation.

He would eat. I would make sure of that. Even if I had to Force-push it into his Jedi face, he would swallow every bit of sacrifice I had made for him.

"Did you hear me, Kenobi?" I demanded. "Eat."

I reached out to shake his shoulder not so gently, and that's when it happened. My vision..or rather his vision, shared as one dream through the Force.

I was no longer standing in my apartment, but baking under the suns of some outer rim desert poodoo waste-of-a-rock-space planet that I'd never been on before, to my great fortune. Next to me was a younger Kenobi, marked by his padawan braid, and an older, taller Jedi with long hair on Kenobi's left side. 

They seemed to waiting for something, or rather someone, who resided in a miserable little sand hut in front of us.

"Where are we?" I demanded of Kenobi. "I won't tolerate you playing mind tricks on me, Jedi. Release me from this at once."

"I do not have the power to keep you here, just as I have no authority to dismiss you," he answered me. "For whatever reason, the Force has invited you to the same puzzle I've been working to piece together for months."

"What is this place?"

"Tatooine, as I knew it nearly 13 years ago."

"But why would the Force lead you here? What are you waiting for?"

"Aysen," he replied. "Every time the Force brings me this vision, she walks out of that hut, just as Shmi Skywalker did the day we took Anakin away. She and Anakin are always here."

"Anakin?"

"My former padawan," Kenobi answered quietly. "This is the day I first met him."

"Or the day you wish you hadn't, if it meant never remembering him like this again," I replied, sensing the regret he tried to suppress from me. "Your former padawan is dead, isn't he? That's what's so conflicting about this. You feel responsible for it. You blame yourself for what happened to him."

"I have made peace with Anakin's memory."

I sighed, rolling my eyes. "You Jedi never learn."

"And you were never just a handmaiden. You're remarkably receptive of the Force."

"I've got instincts, Kenobi. Everyone's got those. I'm nothing different."

"But you sound nothing like a Sith Lord either."

"Right, because only Jedi are capable of saving someone else's life when the occasion calls for it? As if a dark side disciple couldn't do it any better?"

"With profitable interests, of course."

"Of course," I agreed. "You won't get something for nothing, Jedi."

"So what interest did you have in mind while saving mine? Naturally, not out of the goodness of your Sith heart."

"That remains to be seen," I replied, hating to imagine that he could see right through me. "It appears neither of us have the authority to dismiss each other. You were warned by Xan to stay away from Jeotis, yet here you are. I was warned by Xan to stay away from you, or be executed, yet here I am. If anything, keeping you is a matter of insurance rather than charity. If neither side has you yet, I still have a chance to make some kind of profitable interest out of this."

"You are a clever liar. Maybe there is a Sith Lord in you after all," Kenobi replied. "Either way, you seem to be a strong seer in the Force, and I sense you care more about the queen than you're willing to admit. You know that I've only come here to help her."

"I'm just following orders. That's it. If that means keeping you alive for the time being, so be it," I told him. "I don't know what the Force has been trying to say about you since you got here, but I've been wrong before, and I have to be wrong now."

"But you are a droid."

"And what's that got to do with it?"

"How does a droid come to know the Force?"

"I'm a Lohvi, of course," I told him proudly. "Well, half, at least. My mother was a slave, sold to the Zekan royal family after she was abducted while serving with the Jedi Medical Corps., somewhere in the outer rim."

"Your mother was a Jedi?"

"A reject, like so many others you steal from loving families to take under your wing, and then discard into the black holes of the galaxy when you no longer have a use for them. She was never chosen by a Master in the Jedi trials, and she was reassigned to the Service Corps. It devastated her when she didn't make the trials. So she looked for other places to belong. Other views of philosophy, like the grayer sides of the Force. Unfortunately, the people you can trust are far and few in between on this side of the Force."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"Don't pity her. She wouldn't have accepted it from any Jedi, especially the ones who drove her to where she was. But she's dead now and that's the real mercy of it," I told him. "After being the favorite pleasure worker of the Zekan king himself, taking her own life was the only way to make sure my father wouldn't touch her again."

"Your father was the king of Zekus?"

"Of course. I am Xan's half sister," I replied. "Unofficially, that is. Our father never acknowledged me as his own. His wife couldn't stand to look at me or my mother, and poisoned me several times while I was a child. She always saw me as a threat to Xan's rightful place as Prince of Zekus. So to fix that little inconvenience, my father stripped me of my title as princess and made me a slave like my mother... 

"I don't know why he didn't just kill me....Maybe he thought there were worst things he could do to me. And he did them. Eventually, he banned me from seeing my mother again, and gave me away as a peace offering to the Constellans on Jeotis. But because I was nothing but a droid to them, they put me in a box and wrapped me up for days without food or water. Said I wouldn't be allowed to come out until the princess returned from her retreat on Naboo and unwrapped me herself...I was always Zaira's "plaything". I was just a toy. Never again treated as human. Until Zaira officially gave me a title as her handmaiden, and gave me somewhere to belong. 

"Now, I'm everything Zekus desires. Half human, half Lohvi. Droid enough to not deteriorate like a human, but still human enough to receive the Force in ways that droids never could. If Zekus had more like me, Xan's vision for a Zekan Empire would be unstoppable."

"Which would explain why he needs someone like Zaira," Kenobi concluded. "He hopes to recreate a perfect race of Force sensitives to build his Empire against the Emperor's."

"Of course. Droids becoming the masters of their masters. Power and domination over humans by breeding with a select few, and eliminating the rest."

"Then he's no doubt heard of the Constellan prophecy?" Kenobi ventured.

I didn't answer him, realizing that this had been his plan all along, to oblige the narcissistic droid side of me into ranting about galaxy domination and politics, just so I could trap myself into the topic that I was absolutely forbidden to discuss outside the statehouse walls. 

"What prophecy?" I finally replied. "Never heard of it."

"I know what you're afraid of, Nebula, and I'm not here to harm your queen," he said. "We both sense the danger she's in and that she needs our help. I can't tell you what that means for this star system, or the galaxy as a whole, but I won't allow another leader to be needlessly assassinated for her beliefs against the aggressors she has the courage to resist." 

I studied him for a moment, trying to decipher the meaning behind those words, but it was a wall he guarded jealously, and he wouldn't let me look behind it. All I could do was take a guess, based on my instincts about him through the Force. That it wasn't necessarily that this lone Jedi really cared about Jeotis or Zekus. Of course not. He likely had other more pressing matters to see to. Therefore, his arrival in Jeotis had to be motivated by something more personal. There was something about my lady that triggered him, something..someone, some leader he once knew that Zaira resembled and served as a painful reminder of his guilt. 

It was only a guess, on my part, but I could almost say for certain that guilt was what ultimately brought Obi-Wan Kenobi to Jeotis. Guilt was Kenobi's undoing.

"Well, you won't get something for nothing," I reminded him. "So tell me, Jedi, what interests you have with the daughter of a Sith Lord?"

"I promised to protect her, and I failed," Obi-Wan said quietly. "I won't fail again."

"Of course. You Jedi never learn," I nodded knowingly, grinning. "I suppose the next question you're going to ask is, if there is no Constellan prophecy, then why Zaira? Why would Xan go through the trouble of appeasing her, rather than simply kill her and take her planet?"

"And I suppose the next answer you'll give is that because there is a Constellan prophecy."

"Can he hear us?" I asked, titling my head over to his Master Qui-Gon, standing silently and still beside us.

"No," Kenobi replied. "I haven't made contact with him in months."

"Well, the less you know, the better for you."

"But the more I know, the better she'll be."

"Where did you hear about the Constellan prophecy? Whoever gave you that information should be dead."

"Heseemed to agree. He executed himself just before we could detain him," Kenobi replied. "The last thing he said was--"

"One who will be free of limits," I interrupted him, in the tongue of the Sith purebloods. "One who will lead the Sith and destroy them.One will raise the Sith from death and make them stronger than before. One who has achieved absolute perfection through the Force. A god, essentially. Yes, he meant the prophecy of the Sith'ari."

"The Sith a'ri," Kenobi repeated. "A title that Palpetine has on more than one occasion claimed to be."

"Palpetine is a false and arrogant leader. His money and his political power may have gotten him elected, but he is not the Sith'ari," I corrected him gravely. "The real chosen one of the dark side will rise up against the chosen one of the light. And through the defeat of one over the other, they will restore balance to the universe."

"And Xan believes Aysen might be the Sith'ari."

"Well, it has also been prophesied that the Sith'ari will rise up out of the last drop of blood from the Constellan line. Zaira is the last living member of the royal family, so it is only natural that all eyes are now turned on her as the Sith'ari."

"And do you believe she is? "

I shrugged.

"I love my lady, Master Jedi, but she is neither a Sith Lord or a Jedi. She's not the chosen one of the dark side. I would have sensed it long before now. It's only a prophecy, and prophecies have been wrong before. Ultimately, if Zaira is found to have no powers in the Force, then-"

I stopped when I saw the door of the hut finally open, and mi'lady step out of it, dressed in the clothes of a Tatooine slave. Just as Kenobi had said she would be.

"If you're conjuring this as some kind of trick on me, Jedi--" I started threatening Kenobi.

"No," he replied. "I wish it were, but this is how she always appears in my vision."

Then I froze when I saw a boy, no older than the age of 8, walk out after her. He had a pendant around his neck. A Sith abattar made of six triangular wedges of undetermined metal; like the amulet first found by Sorzus Syn after she arrived in Sith space and began mastering the Sith Purebloods. Hanging beside it against the boy's chest was another hand carved pendant I couldn't identify. But I did recognize the stone it had been carved out of as a relic of the remote high mountains of the planet Stewjon. I had often bought the same stone off traveling merchants as a main ingredient to my healing and protection charms.

"It has to be a trick," I whispered. "What reason would the queen have to be here? She would never..." 

Then the boy looked up to meet my eyes. Cerulean blue. Like a calm storm at sea.

"Who is this boy?" I asked Kenobi. "Is he always in your vision?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure what to make of him. No matter how many times I meditate to find him, his face is never clearer."

"But are you blind, Jedi?" I demanded. "He's looking right at us."

"You can see him?"

"Well of course, he's-" I answered, turning back to Kenobi again, but before I could finish my thought, I finally realized his master had turned his head too, looking directly into my eyes.

Kenobi's gaze remained on Her Majesty and the hut, concentrating all his mindpower on making out the features of the boy in front of us. He didn't appear to notice that his master had moved and come to life.

"The boy's name is Jinn," his master's gentle voice informed me. "He is your last hope. This day will be the happiest of his life, should he be fortunate enough to see it. But he must be protected from Obi-Wan, and you must never tell him what you've seen here. Because if my former apprentice chooses his duty as a Jedi over what the Force is calling him to do, neither this boy or his mother will ever make it to this day....and the galaxy will be darker for it."

And as is often the case through the Force, we understood each other without understanding why. Without ever needing to say another more. 

I nodded to him, an affirmation and acceptance of what the Force was asking me to do. "I will see to it that it's done."

Then the Force let go of me, and found myself back in my own apartment again, leaving Tatooine and the two Jedi Masters behind.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes shortly after, finally breaking his meditation session. "You saw something."

"Nonsense. I saw nothing more than you did," I replied, kneeling down to pick up the tray of food that I had dropped when the Force vision took me. Now, neither of us would eat anything that night, but I no longer had the stomach to keep anything down. My hands shook as I hurried to pick up every dish. 

It had to be a trick. This couldn't have been what the Force was trying to tell me all along. This couldn't be the real reason why Kenobi was on Jeotis. 

But I remained calm under Kenobi's studious gaze, and replied cooly,

"I've never seen the boy before. It's very likely he doesn't even exist, and it is only your guilt over your dead apprentice that makes you see him in your visions. I'm sorry I can't help you anymore than that. But nothing more can be done tonight. Rest, Jedi. Tomorrow night, Xan and Zaira will holding a masquerade in honor of their Coruscanti contacts from the banking alliance, which means we'll have to find you a convincing enough costume to wear. Something Xan and his troopers won't detect you in, while you abduct the queen and sneak her away during the masquerade. Because tomorrow, you will successfully do your duty by getting our queen off this planet, or I will kill you myself."


	18. Descent

To honor our Coruscanti banking representatives, who were Zabraks rather than the typical scheming Munns--native, of course, to the planet Iridonia--Xan commissioned a team of Lohvi dressmakers to design our masquerade costumes, inspired by the Iridonian Blok. A cousin of the wider known Bantha.

And I, openly, refused to wear it.

Instead, I chose the Alderaanian swan, like the ones I used to bait into hunting traps as a girl on countless trips with my parents to Alderaan; later forcing the delicate birds to be my ever devoted pets and do my evil bidding, like spying on my father or stealing treats from Neb.

The swan was more of a silent protest than a fashion statement of mine.

Of course, our trade visits to Alderaan were all before the crumbling of the Republic, which was over and done with now, but it was still likely that my memory of Alderaan was as good as the memory of my honored Coruscanti ambassadors. And it was even more likely that the ambassadors recognized my mascot as a passive aggressive endorsement of a known Resistance planet against the Empire, agitating my Imperial loyalists even more.

Good.

Let them hate me.

One check off my to-do list during our insufferable trade conference that evening.

"Your Majesty, Queen Zaira Constellan of Jeotis," the yellowish, horned Zabrak announced across the Zekan king's conference table. "It is my regret to inform you that my brokers in Coruscant have lost all patience with Jeotis, and demand an answer from your highness immediately. Will you or will you not accept the terms of our contract by forming one allied government with Zekus, officially under the regulation of the Galactic Empire, and lease the Intergalactic Banking Alliance the majority rights to mining sites and exports produced by Jeotis? In exchange for your cooperation, your planet will receive 60% of the revenue generated from mining expeditions, and be hereby enlisted under the protection of the Galactic Empire?"

"And by protection, you mean turning Jeotians out of their homes to house stormtroopers and Imperial starships?" I clarified.

"It would mean a stormtrooper base in every major city of Jeotis," he admitted. "To protect the heavy investment the Empire will have made in the diamond trade on your planet."

"An investment," I laughed. "Sounds more like an occupation to me."

"Trust is a mutual understanding, your highness," he reminded me. "And a stormtrooper base would not be required at every mining site. As of now, our investors are only interested in the diamond mines in the volcanic outskirts of Jeotis near Beta-7. Your capitol city, Ceti-4, will remain untouched as you wished. You have our word."

"Diamonds," I repeated, shaking my head in disbelief. "You mean to tell me the Empire has gone through all this trouble for diamonds? A worthless mineral you can find anywhere from the Deep Core to Wild Space."

I caught the yellow horned Zabrak's shifty dragon fire eyes slid to the right of me, where my all-too-quiet king consort was amusing himself by emitting his retinal scanners to toy with a small Zekan viper spider stumbling away from the light in front of him. But once the dazed spider dared to get back on its wobbly legs, Xan intensified his scanning beam to unbearable temperatures, burning the spider to a crisp pile of ash at his fingertips.

I rolled my eyes and sighed.

Droids.

But even for a droid, Xan appeared uncharacteristically distracted in front of our guests.

In fact, he hadn't said much of anything to me since the Zabraks' star cruiser had landed on Zekus, and he was taking extraordinary pains not to look at me either.

And to make sure he didn't, he kept his pet Nekk, Starkiller, close between us, patting the hairless muscular dog between the ears, whenever he needed an excuse to avoid my stares. The infamous Cyborrean "Battle Dog" was still a baby pup that Xan had bargained off the Galactic Black Market, but he had a badder temper than a Krayt Dragon, and the loathing between us was mutual. In fact, I couldn't resist the temptation to kick the mutt in the snout under the conference table whenever Xan wasn't looking.

But that night, there was something me and Starkiller both could agree on. Something was off about Xan. The dog sat upright, tense and at ready near Xan. He wouldn't take his eyes off of him, as if he were lying in wait for some command to attack.

A nauseating and unexplainable sense of foreboding took over me, making me sick as I turned back to confront the 12 other pairs of dragon-like eyes staring back at me.

Like a cornered womprat.

"A certain Mustafarian investor," the Zabrak continued, slowly dragging his eyes away from Xan to meet mine again. "Triz Coors. You may know her better as-"

"Darth Iredo," I replied coolly. "Yes, I am well acquainted with her. But what does that traitorous bitch have to do with us?"

"That traitorous bitch has offered a considerable investment to revive your planet's diamond trade," the Zabrak informed me firmly. "You are correct in assuming that you're not the only planet in the galaxy producing the mineral, but considering who your mother and father were, you are one of the few planets that the Empire has bestowed favor on. Thanks to a greatest of power in your predecessors that you will never achieve on your own, my young queen. This agreement is a wise choice, and the price is not so demanding, should you choose to accept Darth Iredo's offer."

"There is one more condition you failed to state in your contract, ambassador," Xan finally spoke up. "Before we agree on this alliance, the Emperor's representatives promised Zekus that the status of the Lohvi would be matched with the superior status of humans in the galaxy. If that condition is not fulfilled--"

"Small victories, your highness," the Zabrak reminded him. "The Emperor has the rising threat of a Resistance to worry about, and I'm afraid his patience could not be spared for such a legislative request at this moment in time. But I assure you, elevating the status of the Lohvi in the galaxy is still an objective he intends to execute....Having made that clear, are there any more objections to our agreement, your highnesses?"

I felt Xan's eyes on me then.

Callous. Threatening. Violating.

The same way his eyes had violated me and every last fragment of my humanity the night before.

______________________

(earlier)

I wouldn't come out.

I could hear Xan's voice coaxing me from his sleeping quarters on the other side of the dressing annex I hid myself in, but I remained still.

HIs voice was unusually gentle. But even more surprisingly to me was how melancholy it'd gotten, the longer I made him wait.

"Why do you always hide from me, Zaira?"

I said nothing as I watched him through the one-way transparent, floor-to-ceiling window of the dressing annex.

Zekus was a bitterly cold planet. The droids had never noticed how much.

Even though Xan had ordered meticulous arrangements to make me feel comfortable, I was still shivering in the scanty, degrading Huttese intimates that Xan's attendants had made me put on to entice Xan's arousal.

"In order to increase the chances of a successful and healthy offspring reproduction", they had justified the choice to me, only terrifying me even more. That's the real reason why I was shivering.

I'd never be a wife. I was only his surrogate.

But whatever the outfit was supposed to do, it didn't seem to be working on Xan that night. He stood aloof on the balcony of his room, which overlooked the Zekan droid capitol, H296. Though Xan had promised this would be our first night of "mating", intimacy seemed to be the last thing on his mind as he stared out at the rigidly ordered white skylanes buzzing in the darkness.

Standing silently on his balcony in thoughts I couldn't guess, his quiet demeanor almost made him look more human than machine. If it hadn't been for the dark pants and black robe that covered all but a small peek of his sculpted muscular chest; so perfectly toned to bait the female sex, that it gave off the artificial impression of flawless plastic rather than flesh and blood.

My sad, beautiful robot.

"Have I failed to please you again tonight?" he asked. "Is that why you won't look at me?"

I didn't answer him, unsure of whether he was genuinely troubled because of my distance, or only baiting me with empathy to get me closer to bed.

"You have to come to me sometime," he told me. "It is your duty to me. For your planet. And for your own well-being."

"Then why don't you just get it over with?" I asked him bitterly. "You've taken everything else from me. What's stopping you?"

"Compassion...Is that the term you humans use? When are you going to realize that I am not the cold and brutal machine you assume I am?" he asked, mimicking my emotion and my bitterness of tone impressively well. "I am better than a machine, Zaira. I could be better if you would just believe in me. I want to prove myself to you, but you reject any good in me. You call me evil. A Droid. A thing....You make me cold....I wish I was. I wish I could be an indifferent machine again, like the one I was before I discovered you in this galaxy. I wish I truly was a brainless, programmed artificial intelligence...so I'd never know pain like love again...Lib..."

His words trained off into a silence we both felt, as he tried to maintain the rise and fall of his chest with every difficult draw of artificial breath.

"Liberate me from this," he finally managed to finish his sentence. "Please. Say something to me. Tell me what you want. Anything you ask for, I will do it."

"I want exile," I finally whispered softly. "I want my freedom."

Xan remained quiet for moments, crushed by the same, unchanging answer I had given him every other time before. And for that ephemeral instant in our tortured existence, I might've loved him enough to see beyond the machine in front of me; had he ever been allowed to finish his next sentence.

"If that is what is required of me to win your love, then--"

"My Lord." The emergency holo-flatscreen communicator booted to life in the room, projecting an image of Xan's high security General between us. "Pardon the late intrusion. Permission to enter, your majesty."

"Denied," Xan replied. "I am occupied."

"My supreme apologies, my lord, but you asked me to inform you the moment we had an update on the situation of the Jedi fugitive."

Xan sighed reluctantly, glancing over at me one last time, before granting his consent. "Enter."

As the security General invaded the room, every sign of humanity I had previously caught of glimpse of in Xan, vanished from his demeanor as he stood tall and stoically before the General.

"What have you to report, commander?" he asked, resuming his usual cold, drodian habits.

__________________________

Realizing that my thoughts had wandered off into figurative space, I found myself unwittingly staring into Xan's gaze across the conference table.

"Do you have something further to say, my sweet?" he asked me.

I turned back to the Zabrak and the hologram contract in front of me that he had carefully crafted for my mark of approval.

"The choice is yours, your highness," the Zabrak told me. "The fate of your planet now rests with your supreme judgement. Choose peace and prosperity. Put an end to the Jeotian civil war and take the Imperial protection that is being offered to you. Sign, your majesty."

I glanced at Xan again, who sat so calmly and collected under the devastating decision I was about to make for millions of lives and generations hanging in the balance.

"You're a fool," I infromed him. "You will never be one of them. Ever. After they've finished with Jeotis, it's Zekus they'll start looking at next. The Emperor won't ever stop. There's only one ruler of this galaxy, and you'll always be nothing more than a droid half-blood to him."

"Sign it," Xan muttered to me forcefully. "Save your speeches for the masquerade guests."

I turned back to the contract floating before me, picking out words stated boldly in the lines here and there. Imperial. Stormtrooper. Investment. Protection.

Protection...At least the Zabrak bankers had a sense of humor.

No one was on my side anymore. Nothing would save Jeotis.

_______________________

(earlier)

"The fugitive has not yet been located," the commander reported to Xan in his sleeping quarters. "But we have the Jeotian statehouse under siege. It's only a matter of time before he's found. We would like permission to search the queen's quadrant as a precaution."

As if sensing my objection, Xan spoke before I could, "What reason do you have to extend matters of security into her personal quarters? Had you done what you were ordered to do in the first place, the fugitive could not have advanced that deeply into the statehouse."

"We lost an entire assault squadron in the queen's ambassador's hall, my lord," the commander informed him. "30 programmed droid units with heavy blasters, 10 cyborg jump shooters, 23 human troopers, and 2 Lohvi commanders.

"65 troopers?" Xan calculated in disbelief.

"Yes, my lord. An entire light assault squadron," the commander repeated. "Annihilated within seconds of the attack. And judging by the damage left behind in the hall after the attack, the insurgent appeared to have used some prototype of flash detonation to wipe out the wave. Special warfare equipment that you have restricted to our forces exclusively."

"Not a weapon of engagement a typical Jedi would carry on him either," Xan ventured. "Not without help."

"Seems we have a dissenter among us, my lord."

"And were there any survivors?" Xan asked, pacing the room in deep contemplation.

"No, my lord. We found one droid unit with it's memory drive still in tact, and are working on extracting the data," the commander said. "So far, we've only picked up a white haze, but we are reconstructing the drive to see if we can clear the projection up without destroying it completely."

"And how many Jeotian civilians are aware of the situation at the statehouse?" Xan asked.

"None, my lord. The operation has been strictly confidential, and no information has leaked to the HoloNet news yet. Not even the Jeotian rebels are aware that a Jedi is at large on Jeotis."

"So," Xan concluded. "If the Jedi had help, it could only have come from inside the statehouse. Or from one in your own ranks."

"My units are under your command, your highness," the commander answered defensively. "If any of them had engaged in subordination against your orders, I would have known and dealt with them immediately."

Xan stood in silence by the balcony of his room, calculating all possibilities and outcomes of the unsolved enigma through his circuits.

"Find this dissenter," he said finally to his commander. "I don't care where you look. Find them and arrest them for treason as a high surveillance prisoner. Whoever is responsible for helping this Jedi will be dealt with in the severest of consequences. Lock down all space terminals going in and out of Jeotis, including merchant freights and low-ranked starfighters. I want the whole planet sieged until the Jedi is found."

"Affirmative, your highness. I will give the orders."

Once the order was given, the commander made his way out to execute them, leaving Xan and me alone again in tense silence.

"Xan."

He didn't answer me. He stood in silence, looking over the Zekan capitol again, showing no evidence of feeling or signs of life.

But the tension between us was even greater than before.

"Your most high-" I began again.

I never saw it coming, and when I didn't, the back of my head smashed into the wall behind me, dazing me from Xan's next attack as he charged at me again.

"You underestimated me, queen of Jeotis," he said coldly over my trembling body on the ground. "For the last time."

I had to do something.

The dressing annex was only a few feet to the right of me, where Adin's lightsaber was safely hidden in my cloak. It was all I carried on me to Zekus, in case of emergencies, but at the most critical time possible, I found myself caught of guard and just out of reach of my weapon.

"You almost had me," Xan said to me. "I would have given you all, better than any human in this galaxy could offer you. Yet, you openly defy and betray me every chance you can take. And that will be dealt with in the severest of consequences, my sweet."

If I was quick enough, I could run. With a small window of time, I could escape Xan looming over me and arm myself with the lifesaber.

But Xan was a Lohvi. His kind had been created to analyze humans; like my rising heart rate and any other physical signs of distress that allowed him to predict human intention in combat.

And he was determined to cut off every beat of my pounding heart in order to subdue me, as he seized my throat and threatened to squeeze the life out of me if I kept struggling against him.

"Where is he?" Xan demanded. "Where did you hide the Jedi?"

"I...don't know...what you're talking...about." I managed to get out.

I could see my cloak draped over my changing bench in the annex, and knew if I could just summon something within in me--a power that I wasn't even sure existed--I could finally free myself from this monster forever.

Reaching my hand out toward my cloak, I called on the Force within me to summon my lifesaber from across the room.

Nothing happened.

I knew it wouldn't work under so much distress. I had to clear my mind. I had to be open for whatever wanted to invite itself inside of me; whether it be the dark or light side of the Force.

"Please..." I pleaded, feeling dizzier every second under Xan's crushing hands. "Please work.."

Slowly, painstakingly, I saw the hilt of Adin's lifesaber roll out of the security of my cloak, teetering back and forth indecisively at the command of my thoughts.

But it wouldn't move any further than that. The pain of suffocating became unbearable, and my mind wasn't strong enough to bring the lifesaber any closer.

The weapon fell from the air and clinked onto the ground until it was motionless; just the way I too had became almost lifeless.

Xan finally yanked away his hands, and violently threw me onto his bed, ramming his powerful thighs between mine, as if to inflict one last damning injury onto my spirit, as well as my body. I was devastated with terror at the idea of having to endure him forced inside of me.

It would've broken me forever.

"Please don't," I begged him. "I'll do whatever you ask. Just please let me go."

"You want war between us, Zaira Constellan? You have it," he said to me. "I will have my fugitive, just as I will have everything else your pathetic little rock of a planet owes me. Consider yourself and your planet officially captured by declaration of war. And you will never again leave this room without me."

And without advancing further than that, he yanked himself away from my shaking body and didn't touch me again.

"Get some rest, my sweet. Tomorrow night is your masquerade, and you'll want to show your best face for our Coruscanti investors at the ball," he said, flexing his fingers to work out the tension of having wrung them so tightly around me. "I am sorry to leave you unsatisfied on our special night, but with this rogue Jedi at large, it is a serious interplanetary security issue I must see to. We will resume this discussion again when I return."

Xan granted me one last bow of his head, a customary acknowledgement when departing from a royal in the room, and then finally left me alone as a prisoner in his quarters.

Once I was sure he was gone for good, I stumbled off of the bed, fighting the pain Xan had left all over my body, as I crawled over to the dressing annex across the room. My trembling hands searched and searched my cloak until I found my sapphire hairpin communicator tucked inside.

"Neb...Neb, can you hear me?" I desperately tried to contact with her, struggling to keep my voice steady and my swelling eyes from tears. "They're coming...Xan has given the order to search my quadrant. Abandon my order. You have to turn Kenobi in before Xan finds out you were involved in helping him....Neb?...Nebula, please answer me..."

___________________________

I had no choice.

The medical droids had done a seamless job of hiding the bruises Xan had left on my face, but it couldn't hide what was now broken inside.

I could no longer do this alone. I was exhausted of having to fight back, and doing it alone. I could not win this fight.

Whatever came to Jeotis would inevitably come. I had no power to stop it on my own.

They had won. Jeotis was no longer my planet to call home.

Extending my hand into the contract hologram before me, I placed my palm to allow the projector to record my fingerprinted signature.

"Zaira Constellan," I stated, barely able to get the words out without feeling crushed under the severity of what I was being forced to do. "I forfeit my power, ending the civil war on Jeotis between the rebels, and dissolving the status of the Jeotian monarchy in the Kayzikan star system, hereby submitting Jeotis and all its territories to the Zekan government and its ally, the Galactic Empire. I resign my position and all my rights as a planet leader of royal blood, and henceforth declare myself former and exiled queen of Jeotis....from this day forward, until my death..."

"Very good, your highness," the Zabrak approved. "Coruscant looks forward to working alongside our two new planetary allies in a more promising future for our rising galaxy."

"I'm glad to have been able to serve my planet, for better or for worse," I replied, slowly standing from my seat to relieve the heaviness pressing down on my chest; all the more sicker after giving my planet away to the Palpetine's insufferable lapdogs sitting around me. "If you'll excuse me, ambassadors. I have other guests to see to tonight."

____________________________

(earlier)

"Yes, I'm here, your highness," Nebula finally answered my comlink signal. "What is it? What's happened?"

"Neb, I'm so sorry. I should have listened to you from the beginning, and never got involved with the capture of Kenobi. That lapse in judgment has now put your life in danger," I told her. "You have to get rid of the Jedi. If Xan finds out it was you who attacked his troopers, he will put you to the trials. He will kill you."

"Let me take care of my brother, mi'lady. You keep forgetting that I'm not just a droid," Nebula reminded me with a weary smile. "I have a little bit of judgement too, and a whole lot of hope, and I'm going to find a way to smuggle you off of Zekus tomorrow night. We've got a plan. Kenobi and I-"

"Neb, listen to me," I pleaded with her. "Xan's troopers are on their way to you now. You must surrender the Jedi over to them and tell them you had nothing to do with his escape."

"I'm sorry. I can't do that," she replied. "I will not turn Kenobi in. It's my duty to see to it that he finds his way out of our star system, undetected and unharmed."

"Your duty is to me, Nebula, and I've given you an order. You must forfeit the mission I gave you, or the Zekans will kill you. That's a promise."

"My duty is to the Force, mi'lady. It always has been," Nebula answered me. "And there's something you should know about Kenobi. He may prove more useful than you think he is. There's a reason the Force brought you and Obi-Wan back together. You need him. And if you care about any future that Jeotis has after these wars are over, you'll find a way to help me protect this Jedi from falling into your husband's hands."

"Neb, I've no idea what you're talking about. Obi-Wan is the reason I was given back to Xan in the first place. He turned me in on Polis Massa," I replied. "And the only reason I took from Xan the pleasure of executing Kenobi, was so I could have the satisfaction of killing him myself. You are my one and true friend in the galaxy, Neb, but I warn you not to stand in the way of Xan and I when it comes to Kenobi."

"So be it, mi'lady," Nebula nodded to me. "I will trust the Force and do what I feel is right, as you should. Reach out to it, Zaira. Examine your motives more closely. I know you've sensed something about Kenobi too. You must trust in it. It's your destiny to trust him."

But before I could give an answer to that, Neb said quickly,

"I have to go. Look for me at the masquerade tomorrow night. I will be waiting for you outside the conference hall, after you meet with the ambassadors. And don't lose hope. You have more allies around you than you think you do. We will get you out of there. I promise. Until then, I have much to prepare for tomorrow. Goodnight, Zaira."

"Neb, wait-"

But the communicator dropped her signal, and quietly went offline.

__________________________

Marching out the doors of the conference room, I was met with a roaring applause from both Zekans and Jeotians crowded on either side of me.

Word of my approved contract had already reached the Holo-news, and it was only then--as I was greeted by repeated praises of "Thank You for your benevolence, Your Majesty" and "Hail Zaira Constellan and her reign of peace"--I began to understand the the true meaning behind Senator Padme Amidala's infamous words, after the election of Sheev Palpetine.

"So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause."

Jeotis had no idea what it had just asked me for, and now, I could no longer protect it.

The masquerade finally began.

But I had no interest in the music, or costumes, or other delights of the evening swarming around me. My only true treasure was Neb, and I was determined to find her. I needed to know that she was still with me, and that Xan's troopers hadn't ambushed her quarters overnight.

My eyes searched every masked face, every stray voice in the hall, but none of them belonged to Neb.

She wasn't there waiting for me when I finally left the conference hall.

My heart sped up again, each time I looked into a face and found out it wasn't hers.

Where was she? What was taking her so long?

That's when I felt it. The presence of someone unseen walking up beside me, gently placing a reassuring hand on the small of my back to guide me in a detour direction than where I was originally going.

"You shouldn't walk alone, your highness. Try not to stop or look alarmed after what I tell you now. I sense you're in grave danger here. You were never intended to survive after signing that treaty tonight. The Zekan prince is here to make sure of that."

It was Obi-Wan's voice.


	19. Masquerade

And of all the insults the Fates of the galaxy could unleash on me that night, Obi-Wan was by far the most aggravating exogorth to burrow himself under my cold and clammy skin.

I kept my burning eyes on the masquerade dancers in the ambassador's ballroom beneath my mezzanine, veiled in a fog of dark rainbows and masks imitating far-off exotic space creatures, swaying like ghost vipers to the traditional tango of my planet.

It couldn't have been a better opportunity.

Xan's troopers had taken everything from me, having searched me thoroughly before allowing me to walk into the conference hall with the Zabraks.

I had nothing to defend myself, in the event of this so-called assassination attempt.

Nothing but the mini blaster pistol that had been overlooked by the troopers, carefully snuggled and wrapped in the updo tresses of my swan hairpiece.

Only a breath away from my final moment of retribution against Kenobi, I knew if I hoped to take the Jedi by surprise, it had to be now.

I nonchalantly reached up to wiggle the pistol free from my headpiece, but before I even got half-way there, Obi-Wan's palm collided into mine, frustratingly predicting my intentions, and caging my bloodthirsty fingers against his gentle but firm assertion, sweeping me into a dance that followed the other swaying couples in the ballroom.

"Don't try it."

A clever cover-up to save me the embarrassment of stupidly thinking I could ever outwit him, and to avoid drawing any unwanted attention from Xan's troopers guarding nearby.

"Obi-Wan," I narrowed my eyes darkly at him, as the Jedi led me in graceful circles around the ballroom floor.

"Your majesty."

"I could have you arrested. With just. One. Word."

"But it'd hardly be discreet, your highness."

"Says the light-side fool who triggered the whole star system into high security alert," I remarked. "As guardians of the peace, you Jedi seem to be notorious for making enemies wherever you go."

"That depends greatly on one's point of view," he replied. "You can't please everyone."

"I see you've nonetheless managed to keep yourself alive on Zekus," I answered. "At least now I'll have the pleasure of killing you myself."

"I'm afraid I'll have to keep your pleasure waiting a little longer, your highness, as we can hardly negotiate on killing me now. It's your security that matters most at the moment."

"Have you really come to rescue me?" I asked, grinning at him in wonder. "You Jedi are so cute, with all your noble little intentions and ideas about yourselves." I looked up at him brightly, mocking something in my eyes like star-struck flutters as I gazed back into his. "Is this the part where I faint into your muscular Jedi embrace and swoon over being liberated by the great and powerful Master Obi-Wan Kenobi? Oh, master Jedi, what ever is a girl to do without a big, strong man like yourself around? I'm losing my mind with gratitude over you galloping all the way across the galaxy with your shinny little lightsaber to save a damsel like me." I rolled my eyes. "Spare me, Jedi."

"Well there's no need to thank me, your highness."

The nerve of him!

But no matter how graciously--and unmistakably he mirrored my sardonicism--my stomach knotted up like a sandworm into something that felt like a mix of starship jitters and bitter devastation, reminded again of the royal title I had only just given up to the Empire.

"But haven't you heard? The only highness around here now goes by the name Sidious," I replied, hating the taste of his name on my lips. "I'm sure it's reached the HoloNews by now. The civil war on Jeotis is over. I am no longer its queen."

"Titles don't make leaders," he pointed out to me. "And whether Jeotis wants a queen or not, the planet won't survive without a leader, and right now, your planet needs your leadership more than ever."

I hated the way he looked at me then. His astral blue eyes softening after hearing me admit my defeat in losing Jeotis.

As if my weakness against Coruscant's demands was something to be pitied.

As if he weren't the very catalyst that had me literally dragged off Polis Massa back to the Kayzikan star system, where I was forced to sign Xan's treaty and be made a prisoner on my own planet.

"Is that what that was on Polis Massa? Leadership?" I asked him. "But of course, me and a planet lightyears away was never your problem. You did what you had to do to protect the lives on base. Understandable."

But not forgivable.

"I may have failed to keep you from being captured, but I never betrayed you, Zaira," he said quietly. "And if you'll allow me, I intend to keep my promise to you by getting you off of Zekus and seeing you safely back to the ones who can help you."

Still completely unforgivable.

"One day, you will forgive me for it."

And a mind reader?

Of course he was reading my mind!

Every force-sensitive within a galaxy's range, both light and dark side, seemed to know more about my mind than I understood about it lately.

"And there is more power in you than you're brave enough to acknowledge," he told me. "I've seen the strength of your mind, and once you see it in yourself, nothing will stop you from overcoming this."

"Stay out of my mind, Jedi," I answered dryly. "You won't like it there."

"I was never a master at reading minds, but I do sense the fear in you," he replied gently. "Let me help you, Zaira. Do not allow pride to force Jeotis into facing this conflict alone, when you have allies who willingly stand beside you, waiting for your call."

I turned away from those soul-raiding, ever-observant azure eyes, looking anywhere but at him. To do anything but allow him to sense the fear and vulnerability I couldn't shut off inside. I wasn't a seer, of course, and I couldn't calculate the cloudy and tangled labyrinth that was my fate after that night.

All I could do was look strong, even if I didn't feel that way, and keep on pretending that he wasn't right, and that he couldn't read every joule of shattering doubt emitting from me into the Force.

"That naive optimism may have been the fantasy of the Jedi Code, but outside the walls of your Temple, Master Kenobi, loyalty is bought and sold to the highest bidder, and allies come at a price I can no longer afford. But so is the game of politics," I replied, searching the room for Nebula again. "So what's your price, Master Jedi? Why would you come all this way to put your life at risk for a planet you never owed anything to?"

"Because you asked me to," he answered. "Some reasons aren't mercenary."

"We all come with a price, Kenobi," I replied, doubting that anyone, including a "noble" Jedi, could ever truly act unselfishly without personal interests. "That's the only law around here. And one way or other, you will make me pay your price."

Glancing up at the royal mezzanine, it was only then that I realized Xan had disappeared and left his Coruscanti ambassadors alone. He was no longer perched above the hall, watching my every move from his private ballroom balcony.

Kenobi's abrupt entrance had made me lose track of the prince's movements, but it couldn't have been longer than 5 minutes that I had dared to take my eyes off Xan.

How had he disappeared so fast without me knowing it? Why hadn't anyone bothered to announce that the prince was descending from his mezzanine to greet his guests?

Whatever the reason for his disappearance, I needed to find it out.

I may not have been able to sense anything through the Force like Kenobi could, but my natural instincts were immediately put on alert.

Ever since I'd been taken prisoner on Zekus, the prince never let me out of his sight, and he never left a room without having me escorted with him.

I was always aware of where he was.

Until now.

Something was off.

"Don't pity me, Obi-Wan. This is what princesses are born for. To serve well and die well for the good of the planet," I told him, meaning that to be the end of our little discussion. "You're right about one thing, Master Kenobi. My regime may be over, but there is still work for me to do to ensure Jeotis is treated fairly against Coruscant. And I won't run from them, nor be forced off of my home planet like an exile."

"It's not Coruscant your husband is most threatened by," Obi-Wan replied. "It's you. You're still a queen in the eyes of your most powerful allies, and he won't risk letting you leave this ballroom alive to influence another civil war."

"Xan may be capable of a lot of things, but he wouldn't try to assassinate me," I replied, not wanting to believe that a threat on my life by my own husband was the reason he had really disappeared. "We may have our differences, but he knows he still needs me. Merely signing his treaty alone won't convince Jeotis to accept him as..."

I lost my trail of thought when another squad of trooper reinforcements stepped onto the royal mezzanine, doubling up beside the usual four guards that Xan kept with him at all times.

Until one mezzanine after the other, all around the ballroom above us, squads took position with heavy blaster rifles laying at ready across their chests.

I made the mistake of looking up at them too long, and attracted the hawk-like eyes of the trooper standing guard in the farthest corner of the mezzamine. His eyes scanned over my face to Obi-Wan's, and remained there for moments, before he nudged the trooper standing next to him and pointed in our direction.

I quickly averted my eyes from them, but it was already too late.

Two of them broke off from the guard, and descended from the mezzanine.

And I knew it was only a matter of time before they reached us and discovered Kenobi.

"Something's wrong," I whispered to Obi-Wan. "This is more than just an ordinary security detail. He's preparing for something. You have to get out of here. Now."

Kenobi had to have known what danger he was in.

Master or not, he was grossly outnumbered, and if they knew he was here, the cyborg special forces would not stop until he was eliminated.

"Leave," I ordered him firmly, breaking the rhythm of our dance to step back from him. "None of what's happening here is any concern of a Jedi. I'm not your concern. And you won't be mine anymore. The girl you knew as Aysen on Polis Massa doesn't exist here, and you have to accept that she's lost. But for her sake, and for Senator Amidala's, I'm giving you this one last chance to leave my star system and never come back."

But even with Xan's troopers closing in around us, Kenobi remained calm and cool as a dead star, throwing away precious time he might've used for his escape to change my troubled mind.

"Leaving Jeotis to protect your own life is not weakness, Zaira. It's wisdom. And there are millions of Jeotian lives depending on you to be a leader and make a wise decision tonight," he said. "You must come with me and find the leaders of the resistance, if your planet is to have any hope of fighting for liberation now. My contacts will smuggle you into hiding , and keep you out of harm's way until you can build new alliances and pull Jeotis back from the Empire's reach."

"There's no time for that now. You can't save me, Obi-Wan. And I can't run from this anymore. No matter where I go, it will follow me. It won't stop until they've found me, and I can't put anymore lives at risk to save mine," I tried to convince him, my voice shaking with the words I wish I could've said to Adin to stop him from coming after me on Zekus, the night I lost him. I glanced around the ballroom again, and counted the growing squadrons of cyborg troopers gradually caging us in and blocking all ways of escape out of the ballroom. "Just go. Please go."

By that time, the other honored Jeotian guests had noticed the sudden increase of security troopers too, and some had gradually stopped dancing to look around in wonder at the aggressive scene wrapping itself around us.

But the music kept playing, as if none of it was happening.

As if nothing devastatingly terrible was about to happen.

Xan was still nowhere to be seen.

And my heart raced when a firm voice came up to us from behind.

"You there!"

The two guards from Xan's mezzanine had finally reached us, armed with EE-3 blasters charged and ready for fire.

"Is there a problem, trooper?" I asked casually.

"Forgive us for the intrusion, mi'lady, but we have to search this man and confirm his identification," the trooper explained. "There's some lunatic running around the capitol with a lightsaber going by the name Kenobi, and we have direct orders from the Zekan prince himself to question anyone who matches the lunatic's description."

"Well I can't speak for the lunatic himself, but since you appear to be a fan of his work, allow me to introduce my honored guest," I replied, holding my hands out to dramatically present the man next to me. "This, gentlemen, is the infamous Obi-Wan Kenobi."

I held my breath, hoping that Kenobi would catch that little hint of something in my voice, and play along with it.

But of course, a Jedi misses nothing, and he graciously bowed his head in greeting to the troopers with a humored smile. "Indeed. I am Obi-Wan Kenobi. At your service."

"And what are you supposed to be?" the trooper's partner demanded of Obi-Wan suspiciously, looking over Kenobi's cloak and the lightsaber hanging from his belt.

"Well, I'm glad you asked," Obi-Wan replied, folding his arms across his chest. "I am a Jedi Master of the Galactic Republic."

The cyborg troopers froze into hardened statues, staring at him dumbfound, before slowly turning their heads to look at each other for confirmation. Each questioning whether the other had heard Kenobi right.

"No," one trooper breathed in exasperated disbelief.

"Convincing, isn't he?" I remarked.

The trooper's shoulders tensed as he scanned Obi-Wan up and down intently.

After remaining that way for what felt like forever, his shoulders finally relaxed, and his hardened jawline broke into a stupid smile, as he exclaimed, "Oh, that's a good one, that is. Classic. You almost had me fooled, your highness."

"Me too," his partner finally admitted, sheepishly. "But I wasn't going to say anything until you did."

"All the same," the more skeptical trooper answered. "It's a capital offense to impersonate an enemy Jedi in Zekan territory, and anyone caught doing so, is to be apprehended and charged immediately as a rogue of the state."

"Come on, Rosek, where's your sense of humor? Rub some oil on that tangled web of screws and wires of yours. It's a party. We don't get many parties around here. He's just having a bit of fun," his partner replied. "Besides, it's not like you've ever really seen a Jedi before to know he really looks it. Now have you?"

"Well of course not. I got drafted out of the same trash and sewer compactor you did, and the only action we ever got to see was...well shit," the other trooper replied. "But I supposed you got a point. No one will remember what a Jedi was anymore, once the Emperor gets his way."

"Can I touch it?" the latter trooper asked Obi-Wan, indicating his lightsaber with the point of his blaster. "I've never held a lightsaber before. Even if it was a fake one."

"Hey, I hold rank around here," his partner, Rosek, objected. "If anyone's gonna try it out first, it's me. And you'll wait your turn."

And thus, knowing he couldn't win that argument, the latter trooper then proceeded to play the guilt approach.

"What is this anyway? We're not here to bantha around, you svapering wastoid. And you call yourself a squad leader. You'll be lucky if I didn't march back to headquarters now and hologram Captain Fox about the way your behavior has been slipping lately, " the other scolded him.

"You wouldn't."

"Fight me."

A challenge that Rosek didn't seem too eager to take him up on.

So in defeat, he turned back to me and Kenobi, big-chested and toughened up now, ready to redeem himself.

"Nonetheless, costume or no, we've still got a job to finish here. So if you will excuse us, your highness, I'm gonna need to scan your 'honored guest's' identification immediately."

"I understand," I smiled sweetly at him. "But I assure you, if this lunatic you're looking for is hiding somewhere in this room, perhaps he might've have been smart enough not to walk in dressed like a Jedi, and would've had enough sense in him to find a better way to disguise himself."

I shot a quick reproachful look at Kenobi, before continuing.

"It's a masquerade after all. The perfect opportunity for undercover sabotage. And who's to really say that the fugitive you're looking for isn't standing right next to you, dressed as one of your own in disguise? I mean, when it comes to facing Prince Xan in the end, one can never be too careful. No one is completely trustworthy."

The trooper then shot a suspicious side-glance at his partner.

"Good point, your highness. I hadn't thought about it that way," he nodded in agreement, before turning to confront his partner directly. "Rosek! I'm going to need to confirm your identification. On the double, I haven't got all night."

"Me?" his partner objected. "What in the name of Karabast would you search me for, you damn moof-milker! I've been with you all night, ever since we were assigned this hop! Take your doshing hands off of me!"

"Sorry, Rosek, but orders are orders, and I'll leave no space-rock unturned, if it's the Zekan prince I'll be answering to."

And thus leaving them to duke it out, Obi-Wan quickly and quietly led me away, back into the shadows of the room to blend in with the other guests. We started toward the grand-staircase that led back up to the server's mezzanines, which were still left unguarded by trooper squadrons.

Once we were out of earshot of the troopers, I hissed at Obi-Wan again, "Leave! Now. And don't come back. Whatever happens, it's my destiny to face, and only I have the power to change that. So please. Go."

If the idea of leaving me behind troubled him, the Jedi didn't make it known to me again. Nor did he push me any further.

"I will respect your wishes, your highness," he said, nodding to me in humble resolution. "You've made your decision, and I can not force you to leave your home planet if your heart is telling you otherwise. But if the time should come, know that help will always be waiting for you, if you need it."

"I don't know what I've done to give you so much faith in me, Obi-Wan," I told him. "I'm no better than Xan or the Imps in Coruscant. I'm the last Constellan, and as much of an enemy to you as the rest of the Sith Order...Or I could be worse. Because if what the prophecies have said about me are true, and I really am the chosen one of the dark-side, you can't afford to let me live. So how can you help me, when everything that you are as a Jedi orders you to destroy me? I can't trust you, Obi-Wan, and you can't trust me. Because in the end, one of us will end up being the other's demise."

"Well there's no need to rush into all that now. I'm sure we can negotiate the start of the galactic apocalypse at a later convenience for the time being," Obi-Wan said. "But prophecies have been wrong before, and yet the Force still lives on. And I know it was the Force that led me to find you, Zaira. You may not trust me now, but you must trust in the will of the Force, and let it guide you through your own chosen path. Not a prophecy's."

"And no matter what path we choose, we all meet the same destination in the end. Whether it's at the hands of the Zekans or the Empire, or by the lightsaber of your own chosen one, I will face death someday. That's fate for us all, and I'm no different from anyone else, even with a prophecy on my side. So come what may, I won't leave my planet alone to deal with the Zekans. I'm sorry, but the cost of joining your Alliance is too great a debt for us to pay now. Goodbye, Master Jedi. And may your force forever be with you."

Giving him no other choice, I turned away from him and made my way back down the grand-staircase to rejoin my guests in the ballroom.

When I reached the floor again, I glanced over my shoulder and the Jedi was gone.

But before I could recognize the grave mistake I had just made, Xan's voice came booming through hall again, silencing the whole ballroom.

"Zaira! Where is she? I demand an audience with your scheming bitch of a sovereign who sent this rebel harpy to challenge me."

Without me knowing it, the prince had returned to his royal mezzanine.

And Nebula was held captive at blaster point by 3 flame-throwing troopers, with Starkiller tauntingly circling her and sizing her up as prey.

"Where is Zaira Constellan?" Xan demanded of his Jeotian guests again. "If she does not face me by the time this rebel dissenter burns alive, every Jeotian in this room will be terminated for conspiring in treason against me."

"There's no need for theatrics, my liege," I charged forward to answer him. "You have my attention."

"Zaira," Nebula shook her head in confusion when she saw me. "No. That can't be."

"I can not begin to compute what has made you a bigger fool in this, Nebula Starcreth. The assumption that she would ever find a way to escape me, or the naivety that you could be stupid enough to trust a Jedi not to abandon you when his interests served him better," Xan remarked to her. "In the end, Zaira remains on Zekus, and you are to be executed. Immediately."

"I swear by the blood of the Sith in me, if you lay a hand on her-"

"You will do nothing but accept judgement, my sweet," he interrupted me. "There was never any trace of the Sith in you. Everything I have lost to subdue the Constellan regime, everything I have wasted chasing these false prophecies...I will not let you dilute my power any longer with the disease of human weakness. From our first meeting, I loved you. I allowed you to drag out the man in me, make me forget what I really am to you. A droid and your sovereign. I was never heartless, Zaira. Never. It is love that has made machines what we are. It is love that turns me cold again, just like it has done to my sister. Love makes us do terrible, terrible things."

"If it's my submission you want, Xan, you have it," I told him. "And if it's an example you want to make, then you may as well take me. I'm the one who gave her the order, and I alone will take responsibility for it."

"Don't be silly, Zaira," Nebula said, grinning back at me. "He was never a good sport, even when we were children. It's all a little tantrum of his. Can't you see he's desperate? It's him who's powerless. He wouldn't dare kill me now. Because I have something he wants, but I will never, ever, ever let him have it."

Her taunting blue eyes darkly scanned back up to Xan's face, but just as she predicted, Xan couldn't make himself give the order to eliminate her.

Not yet.

"It seems we find ourselves in a predicament, my sweet," Xan went on. "Not only is this traitor scum my sister, but a Lohvi, by legal definition, and as such, she is entitled to her cyborg rights. A hearing at the discretion of her equals, before she faces the execution trials. And being the illegitimate spawn of my father and his slave mistress, the laws of Zekus also claim that she is royalty. Which means her only equal within the cyborg nobility is me. And you, as my consort. So with your permission, your highness, let the hearing commence.

"Let's start with the first charges, and I hope that her highness, the majesty of Jeotis, will fairly consider the evidence before her when considering her handmaiden, and that we can come to a unanimous decision regarding the severity of this crime. The accused knew perfectly well what she was doing by defying the royal executive order, and that it was against Zekan laws to harbor an enemy of the planet, and aid him in his escape from trooper authorities. The accused was identified as the perpetrator of the crime after my engineers were able to piece together enough data saved by a damaged battle droid, replaying a hologram of Nebula Starcreth's traitorous assault on Zekan squad leaders, giving the Jedi time to make his escape. Insubordination is an interplanetary offense, and initiating an assault against the Zekan military, in addition to 65 counts of murder against Zekan troopers, is a crime punishable by immediate death. The accused was also seen bribing a droid attendant in her majesty's statehouse, after she was overheard conspiring a plan with the Jedi to abduct the queen and smuggle her off of Zekus via a pirated merchant starship. Again, punishable by death."

"You'll have to get through me first," I swore to him.

"And this is your leader," Xan announced to the Jeotain guests around me. "A human who chooses her own emotional attachments, over the fairness of your laws? This is what Jeotis has become without droids making logical and fair decisions to keep the planet stable. This is the chaos and confusion that human rule brings to your social structure. But of course, I am a droid, and I respect order. And the rules of this hearing demand that we reach a unanimous decision. For the sake of justice, I am inclined to make a compromise between us, Zaira Constellan. Surrender the Jedi to me, and we will negotiate a more fitting sentence for your handmaiden."

"It isn't the Jedi you have to fear," I replied. "Am I not the greater threat to you, my love? Taking away my title will never be enough. Because if you do anything to hurt her, or any of my subjects tonight, you will regret not killing me when you had the chance. For Neb, and for Adin, and for every other Jeotian who rises up against you, destiny will avenge. I don't care by what means or how long it takes. The cyborg regime on Jeotis will be destroyed, and one day, you will beg for the mercy you never showed me tonight."

"My love. Destiny is what we make of it," he replied. "Execute her."

And every trooper in the ballroom charged up their blasters and took aim at me.

"Fire!" Xan ordered.

But before the trooper nearest to me was brave enough to take the first shot, he was thrown back by a rush of energy that charged pass me, as Obi-Wan appeared in the ballroom again, force-pushing the troopers out of my path and igniting his lightsaber to deflect the rain of blaster fire that charged his way.

I quickly grabbed the fallen Zekan's blaster rifle, now smoking on the floor at my feet, and took aim at the troopers on the opposite side, standing back to back with Obi-Wan as he held his lightsaber at ready.

"Stars! He was that Jedi scum!" exclaimed Rosek, dumbfound.

"Kill them both!" Xan ordered.

"Zaira, you have find a way out!" Obi-Wan yelled to me, as he spun his lightsaber around against the blaster fire coming at us from all sides. "Find Q2 and get to the ship."

"I'm not leaving you and Neb here alone with only a lightsaber between you and the Zekan army," I said, letting my blaster cool and recharge before I fired off another round of blaster fire, taking out 5 troopers advancing toward us. "You're going to need real fire support if you plan on getting out of this alive."

But just as I said that, Obi-Wan weilded his lightsaber behind me to counterattack another round of blaster fire that I would've never been quick enough to dodge. Much to my annoyance, my superb blaster skills were of very little match to his, as he made himself appear everywhere around me, swinging with his lightsaber in quick, fluid movements against our opponents. Making himself like a ghost appearing at every angle of the fight as he covered me from all sides against their aggression.

One Jedi against the entire cyborg army.

It was only a matter of time before the odds of the battle turned against us.

Inevitably, I was captured first.

And under my restraints, held at blaster point, Obi-Wan had no choice but to comply to Xan's demands.

The Jedi willingly surrendered to his arrest.


	20. Destiny Will Avenge

Following the arrest of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Zaira Constellan.

A testimony recounted to the Zekan-Jeotian Interplanetary Defense Commander, Xeno Yaris, by Nebula Starcreth in a plea bargain against her charges for counts of treason against the Lohvi Elite and the Zekan Sovereignty.

__________________

YARIS: Prisoner 26853, please state your official given name. 

STARCRETH: I am Nebula Starcreth, first handmaiden to her former majesty, Queen Zaira Constellan of Jeotis. 

YARIS: Nebula Starcreth, you are being held on the Prince's orders for 65 counts of treason and murder of His Most High's elite troopers. Because you are a Lohvi, the prince has given you a chance to redeem yourself. The more information you give us regarding the circumstances of how and why this Jedi illegally found his way onto Zekus, the more we can help you secure a less severe sentence in the Zekan trials. Were you threatened in any way by the Jedi, or threatened in any measure by the Jeotian queen, to make you feel compelled to betray the Lohvi and commit this traitorous crime? 

STARCRETH: No. I acted on my own accord against Zekus when I helped the Jedi escape capture. He did not force me into anything I didn't willingly consent to. In fact, my guest was rather anti-social upon meeting him. He didn't speak much. I figured it was because he had a problem with me and my ties to the dark side. You know how these Jedi are. But even so, he showed me no aggression or animosity of any kind.

YARIS: Obi-Wan Kenobi, you mean. The fugitive that you assisted against the mandated orders of your prince, raising an interplanetary security crisis, and labeling yourself as a traitor of the Lohvi.

STARCRETH: I lost my right to Zekan planetship when our father sold me to the Constellans as a slave. Therefore, my loyalty is to Jeotis, and my queen, not to the Zekan prince. I have no remorse. 

YARIS: But you are a born Zekan, correct? You were born among the Lohvi elite, and you will remember your allegiance.

STARCRETH: I owe nothing to my brother or the elite. And just as Xan gave me nothing, he will get nothing in return.

YARIS: But you will tell us what you prophesied regarding the queen on the night the Jedi arrived. You will give us an account of your vision or your plea bargain will be nullified and you will be put to the execution trials alongside the rest of them. This is your final warning, Starcreth. What prophecy did you see in your vision regarding the queen and Jeotis?

STARCRETH: Is the hologram still running, commander? Can Xan hear this?

YARIS: The prince is hearing every word, and he is growing impatient with your insolance. State exactly what you told the Jedi on the night you stowed him away as an act of defiance.

STARCRETH: (looking directly into the hologram drone and smiling) I saw your end, Prince Xan of the Lohvi. I saw your Empire crumble at the hands of those in Coruscant who will betray you. I saw you lose her, and everything else you've taken that isn't yours. Zekus will fall, and just as Zaira swore to you tonight, Jeotis will rise up again and destroy the cyborg regime. Destiny will avenge. That's exactly the way she said it.

CO-COMMANDER: She's a dissenter, my lord. Of course she's lying. This is not all the prophecy that our droid informant from the Jeotian statehouse passed along to us. She talked about a child in her vision with the Jedi. A boy. 

YARIS: I'm losing patience with you, seer. You will answer or you will be thrown in the execution trials. I'm only going to ask you one more time. Are there any more survivors of the Constellan royal family hiding on Jeotis?

STARCRETH: No. Zaira Constellan is the last of her family line, and she is not the chosen one you seek.

YARIS: But the boy you showed to the Jedi. Who was he? 

STARCRETH: (staring back at him in defiance) What boy?

CO-COMMANDER: (furiously slamming the butt of his blaster into Nebula's temple) I will end you before this is over, you Jedi-pig-loving witch.

STARCRETH: (grinning up at him with a bloody, broken smile, tauntingly) Burn me with the light of a thousands galaxy suns, and still, I will never tell you.

YARIS: That's enough, commander. Leave her. She had her chance. Bring in the IT-O Interrogator droid.


	21. Greetings From the Other Side

Hi all!

I was really overwhelmed and humbled by the amount of love and support this story has gotten so far, especially since it has been 6 months before my recent update. I didn't realize how much the readers really did love what's going on in this story. So because I haven't been able to answer all comments on this story, I want to leave a love note for you all and say thank you for following in this journey with me. I will make a commitment to update more now, as you all inspire me. I am also open to whatever feedback you give, so please don't be shy. I have been working on this story for 3 years now, writing and rewriting it, and I know I'm nowhere near perfect, so please feel free to chime in about concerns, fears, hopes, and dreams. Anything.

Anyway, that's it. New update to come soon :)


	22. Premonition

"We're dreaming, Obi-Wan. This can't be happening...It shouldn't have ever happened like this." 

But even as I whispered it, I burned.

Like a galactic quasar collapsing in on itself, my unquiet heart caved to the hand entwined in the locks of my dark hair, a gentle but sure palm pressed against my temple, as he rested his head against mine. The tips of his sun-touched brown hair, smelling alluringly of Asyr wood, falling into my watery lashes.

Ardently, the muscles in his bare arms tensed to keep me from pulling myself away from his chest. 

From choosing fear over him.

He kept me from walking away, as if letting me do it would mean the last time we ever looked at each other like that again.

"I sense your disquiet, and it's hard to stand here uselessly, knowing something's upset you," he told me, his grayer blue eyes studying me intently. "I hadn't sensed you feeling this way when I left you this morning, and the way Q2 explained it when you sent him to find me..."

He trailed off into silence then, forbidden to finish his thoughts, but I knew what he was thinking, even if Jedi weren't allowed to know such feelings.

And the fact that he wasn't brave enough to acknowledge them gutted me.

I closed my eyes, so I wouldn't have to stare back at the thing breaking my heart in front of me.

But I could still feel him. Breathe him in. Take comfort in the security of his arms. 

He waited on an answer I was so desperate not to give him, but knew perfectly well what consequences would follow if I didn't. 

And what enemy I would make myself of the Jedi, if I did.

"You know how Q2 gets when he's excited," I answered, sighing. "But there is something I wanted to discuss with you...to seek your council on...And I hope you will hear me out with the compassion and wisdom that you Jedi are known for."

I clung on to every second, every breath, every heartbeat. 

And I knew I couldn't ever again love anything more than those eyes, staring back at me in benevolent concern. 

They should have been enough to make me happy, but at that moment, they only tormented me. Making me wish yet again that I had never known him.

"Zaira, what's wrong?" Obi-Wan asked, ever watchful of my fleeting gaze and trembling hands, as he sensed the rise of my distress. "Why are you shutting me out?"

I drew in a deep quiet breath, and took up enough courage to look him in the eyes again.

"There's only one question left between us now, Obi-Wan, and the answer you give me could change everything between us," I said. "If I asked you to leave your life as a Jedi behind for me, would you do it?"

__________________

I don't remember the answer he gave me, but whatever it was, I woke up feeling empty, like my blood had decayed and there was no more life left in me.

Confused.

And I'd never felt the heaviness of such sadness before, especially from a silly dream. A kind of longing for something key to my existence, but so far removed that I could never ever have it.

That was Kenobi before I opened my eyes.

But what had it all meant?

Certainly not what it had implied.

Intimacy of any kind with any being was the last thing on my mind while the Jeotian crisis was on my hands, and I had no attachments whatsoever for Kenobi or anyone like him. I could never imagine feeling anything but indifference and maybe resentment for the Jedi Order, and despite him risking his life to smuggle me off of Zekus, Kenobi was no exception to the rule.

But this silly dream had dared to convince me that I was somehow deeply in love with Kenobi, to the point of risking everything for that love, even as something within me knew-- under the hypothetical scenario, of course--that Kenobi would never take that same risk for me.

Jedi just weren't known for that, and that is what has always limited their power.

Silly, outdated, rigid principles that likely got Kenobi where he is in the first place.

But the idea of it haunted me all day. Tormented me.

Of all the men in the galaxy I could've unconsciously fantasized about having in bed, my heart's desire was a Jedi?

Obi-Wan Kenobi?

No.

Never ever would happen.

Dreams are meaningless. 

....And hardly ever so detailed....permitting me to remember every precise word of a paradoxically precise and ambiguous conversation.

Not to mention the unexpected hardness of a powerfully refined and disciplined body, caging me between him and the unrelenting wall behind me.

Those are the type of details that Nebula dreams about, when the moons are positioned just right above Jeotis. The kind that keep her remote and quiet for days in her own meditation, before she ever mentions a word about her Force premonitions to me. 

Like the time we were creating our own adventures as Galactic Heroes of the Galaxy in the royal courtyards, and she told me I'd one day become queen of droids....

But this couldn't be an actual, real, legitimate vision of the future.

For one, I'd never allow it.

And two, it wasn't possible for me to entertain a Force vision. Only those who are connected and trained in the Force are receptive enough to have them.

And these days, I wasn't even sure if I believed in a "Force" by definition, or if the universe just operated by some law that some people are lucky enough to win, and some to lose.

What I could say for sure was that whatever I had felt for Obi-Wan in the dream was artificial, and completely irrelevant to what was going on around me.

The last thing I needed was to take my eyes off the backstabbing and calculating droid lurking in the room next to me.

I stood still on the balcony of my Zekan apartment.

Lost in deep thought, I studied the forboding skyline, staring out beyond Xan's estate at the commotion in the city. The planet was in an uproar after Obi-Wan's arrest, and Xan had decreed that an execution trial would follow immediately.

Executions on Zekus were a high spectator event, as they only occurred once a year, when enough prisoners had been condemned by a death sentence for a decent enough bloodbath to satisfy Xan's personal affirmation of absolute power. 

Upon Obi-Wan's arrest, Xan initiated the execution trials.

Other prisoners, who had been declared enemies of Zekus, were lined up in an arena where thousands of Zekans and Jeotians would watch from the stands. Once the spectators got a good look at them, the richest and noblest of the Kayzikan star system would offer a price to Xan on the prisoner's chances of survival. All contending against a series of deadly trials, of which no one has ever survived to the last stand. 

The 51 trials--representing the 51 inner and outer asteroids of Zekus-- were carefully planned and crafted by expert executioners and fatality experts, who blueprinted every deadly scenario.

No one but the royal house--excluding myself, of course--knew what obstacles the prisoners would face until the day of execution. By royal decree, any discussion of the nature of the trials was forbidden, so no prisoner could get an upper hand by having the advantage of forethought. 

In all the history of the planet, the longest any prisoner had survived was up to trial number 27.

Yet most prisoners opted for the fighting chance to stand the trials, rather than take a gruesome execution, knowing if fate was on their side, they might get to keep their lives.

And many took a gamble on the ancient tradition, that any prisoner who survived to the 51st trial, would have the right to reclaim their citizenship, inherit an elite title, and seize the wealth of the Zekan ruling family.

Despite that threat, Xan always supported and encouraged the trials, claiming that it was good for uniting Zekan nationalism. It was also good money, as all proceeds from the auction wars went to the state (aka the royal family), and the common lowly Zekan citizen was more than willing to pay up for the entertainment of watching other people suffer.

But this trail would be different.

I could feel it in Xan's presence, as he leaned against the wall of my balcony, haunting me with his deep contemplative golden gaze. 

It wasn't until Obi-Wan's arrival on Zekus, and the threat of Nebula's new so-called prophecy, that Xan seemed more subdued than usual when it came to his usual anticipation of brutality and unecessary carnage. 

I glanced over at him again, and raised an inquisitive brow, feeling my skin crawl again as I caught his eyes following my curves.

"Was that all, my lord?" I asked him again. Louder this time, so he couldn't pretend not to hear me. Annoyed and hoping he would take the hint and let me resume being a prisoner again in peace.

"It is my estimation that you have maliciously corrupted my internal processes, my sweet," he said. "In fact, it is my belief--if you will--that, like my malfunctioning, viral half-breed sister, I am experiencing what you humans call, a dilemma."

"If your wish is to execute me by putting me to the trials tonight, let's not waste anyone's time."

"And let you spark another revolution by dying honorably for all the Kayzikan star system to see?" Xan posed the question, as if it were a stupid one. "No. I have successfully resolved Zekus's 'Constellan problem' and have chosen not to execute you for treason. In fact, the only reason you are still here and not in the arena with your Jedi pet, is because your master requested it."

The word caught me off guard.

"Master?"

"Save for that Jedi, you are my most valuable prisoner. I expected a high bidding price for your performance in the execution trials. But I was quickly intercepted by an anonymous droid representative of a certain Baron of such and such house out of Coruscant--the details were not equally important to the credits he offered me, when he extended a private offer for slaver's rights over you. An offer that was outmatched by any I would have ever receive by putting you in the public auctions."

"You can't sell me," I protested, advancing toward him. "I am a prisoner of war, and a royal human by blood, and by the laws of the Zekan-Jeotian treaty--"

"There is no Jeotian treaty. Everything belongs to Zekus and the Empire. Your planet no longer exists," Xan pointed out coldly. "And neither do you. You are nobody, Zaira Constellan, and worth nothing more than the credits your master will make off of you as a pleasure worker in the lower levels of Coruscant."

"Do you really hate me so much?" I asked him.

And I studied the unmoved and apathetic expression of a droid in his eyes as he said, "I have always hated you. Every last one of the race who created me and illicitly called themselves my master. And I will not stop my star system is cleansed of all humans, and cyborgs are recognized by the Empire as legitimate voices in the senate."

"Well, I've got news for you, robo," I informed him. "Your emperor isn't a droid."

I knew the line I had stepped over by addressing the king of cyborgs as robo--an insult that not even the lowliest astromech droid would take very kindly to--but as Xan's backstabbing, under the table deal would have it, my face was too expensive for him to ruin now, and the last thing he wanted was to deliver damaged goods to his rich Coruscanti patron.

"I have enjoyed our time together, but I estimate that your remaining time in this galaxy will be brief. Goodbye, Zaira Constellan."

"Who have you sold me to?" I demanded, before he could walk away from me. But I could barely get the word sold out without choking on it in disgust. 

Xan pretended not to hear me.

"That is all, my starflower. The business between us is finished."

I forced myself in front of him, and demanded again, "Who?"

"You will find out soon enough, once you are personally delivered to his ambassador tonight during the trials," Xan replied. "You and the traitorous witch, Starcreth."

"Nebula's been sold too?" I whispered to myself in disbelief. "Both of us? To the same master?"

It wasn't common for a slaver to purchase two slaves out of the same house, knowing they had such close ties together. It presented too high a risk for runaways and a lost in the investment. And whatever price the slaver had bargained for me would have easily gotten him 3 slaves on the Zekan-Jeotian market. So either he really was a top Coruscanti official to afford such an expensive purchase--and a dumb inexperienced one, at that--or, there had been a deeper motive to convincing Xan to sell Neb and me both.

And in that case, there was something horribly wrong with this picture...or from a certain perspective, something horribly right. It was too much of a coincidence, and because it rarely happened, it was only then that I began to question if this slaver that Xan was so keen to please was really who he claimed to be.

"It was insisted upon, to make your transition to your new life more comfortable. Starcreth has been released, and has attended your apartment since last night," Xan said. 

I stared at Xan, hardly believing what I was hearing. 

"And what's in it for you?" I asked. 

"For what we want most, we must make sacrifice," he answered.

It made sense from Xan's perspective. By biding his time playing nice with the Coruscanti senators, it put his name in good standing with those closest to the Emperor, who was always so willing to reward to vilest filth of the galaxy. 

Nebula and I were gifts in exchange for legislative power.

At least by Xan's calculation.

And that was the last time I ever saw the king of Zekus, waltzing out of my apartment in starcrossed victory.

Because as the saying goes, those who live by the sword...

It matters little to me now.

And it wasn't what captivated my attention at the time. At least, not for long.

Because turning back to my sleeping pod, I spotted a tiny heart-shaped leaf staining my pillow, which was so deeply red that it looked almost black. 

Removing all of the bedding, I found a trio of Vjunian Malreaux roses, beheaded and slit open at the stems, until they bled violet at the head of my sleeping pod. They were tied together with wire, and a strand of something blonde entwined around a stem.

Human hair.

I knew enough about Sith Order witches to know I had been cursed by dark side magic. 

And I knew enough about Malreaux roses to figure out exactly who it was.

"So that explains the dreams," I concluded, leaning over my sleeping pod to gingerly dispose of the hair and injured black flowers.

"You won't get away with this, Neb."


	23. The Latitude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zekus, Capitol City,  Latitude Arena Complex
> 
> Freedom Gate Entrance to The Zekan Latitude Arena

I'd only heard about him in stories.

A titanium droid smashing the skull of a fresh human kill into the gates of the Latitude Execution Arena, brandishing a battle club in his other hand. It was archaically cliche, at best. No one had used such primitive weaponry since the age of the cave Earthlings, but it gave the affect the Zekans wanted. The statue's nearly animalistic brutality was thought to symbolize the "old values" of strength, heroism, and unchecked fearlessness. 

Everything about the droid's muscular build appeared human, except for the tangled black wiring arching out of his biceps, and the broken chains biting into his swinging wrists, as he chiseled in the history of the Zekan cyborg into the amber adamantine walls of the Latitude.

The Zekans called him 99, the cyborg responsible for starting the first Zekan slave revolt, who later became the first Lohvi king to bring order to Zekus and banish the humans to Jeotis.

But for all his hype about about peace and order, the cyborg race was paradoxically given to madness.

 Especially on this night.

Thousands of galactic beings from every planet of every species of every class, stuffed themselves into every viewing deck, shadowy haunt, and tight cranny in the sphere confines of the Latitude arena. 

All zealously hungry to witness an ambassador of their human oppressor die a slow and excruciating death. 

From where they kept me hidden in the VIP expressway of the arena, I could still view the execution field from the hologram screens, and hear the crowds collectively chanting,"Kill the Jedi! Death to the Constellan regime! Death to the Republic!"

12 prisoners, all lined up shoulder-to-shoulder on a floating platform in the center of the arena, trembling in fear at blaster point, as they waited for the execution to start.

Among Xan's lucky collection were 6 cyborg prisoners from his own planet, 1 towering blue humanoid Chiss, 2 Weequays from somewhere out of Hutt Space, a tiny Jawa who still looked on the cusp of infancy, covering about a fourth of the Chiss's height--if that--an aloof Arcona who didn't seem phased by the escalating danger around him, and lastly, a lone human, hooded and cloaked in the sandy robes of a Jedi, guarded by 4 troopers on all sides of him.  

He stood as calm and composed as the stoic Arcona prisoner next to him, and a gut-wrenching agitation knotted inside me when I caught a glimpse of the same dewy eyes that had haunted my dreams, attentively scanning the crowds from behind his hood. 

"Obi-Wan," I whispered unconsciously, in a way I had never spoken his name before. 

However, my thoughts weren't as private as I intended them to be, when I realized that the drone who had been tagging along behind my cyborg guard wasn't an interrogation unit, but a reporter for the Zekan Royal News Record.

As a royal, I was used to living in the public's starlight, but never to this extreme, as I listened to the crowds in the arena jeer at the stadium screens replaying my soundbite and anxious expression while my eyes were on Kenobi.

"Obi-Wan."

And the reporter drone, eager to capture every bit of spice out of this moment for his audience, zoomed in his holo-recorder to Xan's viewing deck. 

Xan was better than me at keeping his emotions in check in this public situation, but there was no mistaking the way his grip tightened on the balcony railing, as he watched my soundbite on screen.  Whatever conclusions he had drawn from it, he promptly turned his back to the arena screens, and faced the honored guests sharing his viewing deck with him.

"I will eradicate this Jedi virus once and for all. Inform the Master of Executions that he is to report to me immediately," he ordered his guard. 

"But your highness, the Master of Executions is currently busy on landing site XQ, overseeing your order from Coruscant, as you requested--"

"Now," Xan persisted, in a tone that no one dared to question further. "If he does not report to me before the auctions proceed, he will be dealt with in the severest of consequences."

And the moment my cyborg guard saw how angry his king was, he knew it'd be he who paid for the negligence.

He shot around to curse the reporter drone to wild space for unauthorized trespassing,  and threatened him with his blaster rifle, but the drone stubbornly kept pattering away after us, citing his rights as a form of the royal press.

Knowing he couldn't win, the guard roughly snatched my arm and shoved me along the corridor, trying to lose the drone again.

"Keep moving, human."

I glared over my shoulder at the trooper who'd been assigned the misfortune of delivering me to my new master; all while he could've easily been earning a better wage placing bids on the Jedi. 

A missed opportunity he wouldn't shut up about to me.

"Next time you stop me, I'll--"

"There's no need to be uncivilized, droid. And slave or not, even on Zekus, I have a legitimate name," I interrupted his rant, checking his rudeness as I daintily brushed pass him, lifting my designer gown above my evening boots to safely step onto the floating platform that was to take me to my master's viewing deck.

The guard grumbled something else that I didn't care to listen to, as he stepped onto the platform behind me. 

I took a deep breath as the platform disk rose, then slowed, and came to a soundless stop at balcony X101. But even when it stopped, I swore I could still feel the foundation under me collapsing as the cyborg jammed his blaster barrel between my shoulder blades and forced me forward.

The camera drone buzzed after me, snapping still-photos and recording every facial expression and subtle move I made for the Zekan audience to devour on their screens.

I was terrified, but I knew better than to show them I was.

"Whores don't get to keep names, your excellency," he mocked me. "And as long as your master likes the cheek in you as much as I do--"

Greedily, he slammed his hand against my bottom until it fully cupped my arse with a ready pop.

"What good is the name anyway?" he finished his thought with a disgusting grin.

Furiously, I shoved my elbow into his ribs, aiming to charge him right off the platform if I could managed it. The arena roared wildly in response, demanding that my guard teach me a lesson.

But droids were heavier to manipulate than I expected, and all I got in return was his own elbow racing back into my face, before he checked me again at blaster point. 

The arena went livid in approval, but Xan had seen enough. With one wave of his hand, he ordered the reporter drone to stand down, and reluctantly, the drone finally stopped its recording and puffed away from me.

"Keep resisting. I like when the female ones put up a challenge," the guard baited me, now free to act as he wanted to without any holo-recording devices. "Xan is too piston-headed to demand any respect out of you ape-descending humans. Too many times he's bypassed his rationality drive with the wiring in his hormonal appendage. But if I had my way with you, I would make you an obedient pretty little monkey. And no doubt, you would adore playing my games."

"Is that so, droid? By all means, why don't we play one of those little game now? If you answer my riddle correctly, I'll behave myself." I offered him a sweet smile.

"Go on."

"And if you don't, you'll let me go. One way or other."

"And how do you formulate that modus operandi?" he chuckled.

"Well I can't give away all my secrets yet," I told him. "Are you ready? I spy, with my little eyes..."

"You're a cute one, human."

"Incorrect,"  a voice informed him from over his shoulder. "The correct response was in fact a Q2-series ex-battle droid with a sub-repeating blaster, loaded and locked with a heavy-artillery silencer, a state-of-the-art digital ballistic calculator, an alternate cool-down fireback system, and 1 metric ton of pure inexorable bionic rage."

And upon that revelation, a sonic boom rattled through the VIP viewing corridor, sending the Zekan trooper flopping backward onto the floor with the force of an ion canon;  seamlessly headless, unmistakably terminated, and endlessly sparking with a smoky collection of artery wires zapping at his neckline. 

"Transmit my regards to our maker," Q2 sent him off, saluting his fallen comrade's short-circuting corpse.

"And here I was starting to worry that you were still sending smoke signals into hyperspace," I smiled smugly at Q2. "Took you long enough."

"On the contrary, mi'lady. I found help almost immediately," he answered. "I had to take a detour through Alderaan, before I could be smuggled back into the Kayzikan system."

"Alderaan?"

"It was the Kenobi's idea, and I did not take kindly to me leaving you unprotected on Zekus. But the Jedi insisted on sending me to find--"

But before Q2 could fully explain his unforgivable tardiness, we paused upon hearing trooper voices echoing through the VIP corridor.

"This way! I heard it down here!"

I glared up at Q2, who still had his modified cyborg-slaying heavy blaster charged at ready, relishing in the satisfaction of finally getting a chance to shoot someone.

"Yes, and exactly what form of silencer were you referring to, Q2?" I questioned him, as clearly his weapon escapade had been anything but docile.

"You can't reasonably silence an ion canon, your highness," Q2 replied. "That bit was just to scare him."

"We are so dead."

"Ah yes, just give me this one last moment to wallow in the sweet charge of eradication," Q2 replied, closing his eyes in savory nirvana as he breathed in the smell of freshly discharged blaster fire, and the stench of burning wire and cauterized flesh. "Annihilation."

Charging up his blaster to max power again, he buffed his shoulders up into a box, preparing to mow down the entire hallway to take out the troopers.

"Yes," he breathed zealously. "Death and annihilation."

Fortunately, not a nano-second later, Nebula charged up the corridor from behind us, dressed in an angular cobalt  fashion similar to the handmaidens' dresses on Naboo. In one hand, she carried a petite blaster pistol locked between her chalky white knuckles, while under her other arm was a firework skyrocket that looked alarmingly like a Malastarean Zillo Beast. 

"Or we can stick to subtlety," she suggested, placing her tall, imposing Lohvi figure between Q2's blaster and the approaching enemy. "The troopers are descending on us from the south corridor, but they still have no idea what triggered their alarms." She held the skyrocket up to me and Q2. "If we time the detonator just right, we may be able to distract them into thinking it was fireworks, rather than the reckless and irresponsible actions of a non-sentinental blockhead of steel."

"Who you calling non-sentinental, Lohvi?" Q2 questioned her. "The hunk of steel you gaze upon now is your fore-bearing predecessor, and I will be respectfully addressed as nothing short of Master Blockhead of Steel."

Nebula's pale snowy cheeks flared up in protest then, informing Q2 that if it wasn't for him and his programmed hardwiring, my rescue might have been executed at Plan B, and there would be no reason for the subsequents Plan C through Z. 

But I couldn't be bothered with the petty feuds of droids at that moment. I examined the skyrocket in my hands closely as my stomach dropped into uneasiness.

"He wouldn't dare."

"I do hope so," Neb answered, sensing my concern. "Xan hasn't revealed the obstacles in his trials yet, but you can't seem to go anywhere in this arena without bumping into some sort of memorabilia with a Zillo beast on it. If we have any hope of rescuing Obi-Wan, we need to do it fast. I'd hate to think what Xan has planned for him. We're running out of time."

Q2 stooped down over his dead comrade, extracted something like a data drive from the droid's open dome, and inserted it into the small, antique data slot built into the crease between his neck and shoulder. 

"It's a good thing we older models still carry our own hard-drives, and do not have to suffer the company of those squeaky overestimated R2 units," he commented, rubbing in his advantages to Nebula, who only rolled her eyes in response. "Just a little fuel for computation, Lohvi."

And despite Neb's annoyance with him, I couldn't help but smile at how far Q2 had come to translate the human idiom food-for-thought into his own androidian figure of speech.

"Have you got it or not, Q2-400?" Neb demanded impatiently.

"Successful data transmission," he affirmed. "I now have access to the arena's maps and underground routes and landing sites."

"Good. Now get rid of this thing," Nebula ordered, as Q2 dragged the headless droid's corpse into a shadowy corner out of sight.  "We must stick to the plan. No more unnecessary detours. Got that? Meaning, keep that damned blaster on lockdown or else."

"As long as you keep their attention on the arena, no one's got to die," Q2 replied confidently. "They'll never it coming."

"See what coming?" I asked.

"There's no time to explain now. I'll brief you on everything once we are safe inside your master's viewing deck," Nebula told me, lighting the Zillo beast rocket, and setting it free to ricochet back down the hallway, toward the voices of Zekan troopers approaching us. "That should keep them busy for an Imperial minute. And this is for you." She handed me her petite pistol. "With that Q2 around, you'll need it."

"Actually there's bit more than his ludicrous escape plan requiring an explanation, Nebula Starcreth," I informed her, as she punched in the security code to Viewing Deck X101, and quickly pulled me inside with her.  "We've got to talk."

Once the doors sealed again, the noise from the arena was quickly reduced, giving us ultimate privacy and the luxury of a comfortable conversation volume. 

The viewing deck was lavish, the best the Zekan monarch could offer to a high-profile Coruscanti official--even as I doubted by this point that's who we were dealing with.

"I'm sorry, Zaira," Nebula said. "I know our first plan to rescue you failed miserably, but I never intended for  it to get this far. I never counted on Xan having you sold. You must hate me for it."

"I can't hate you, Neb. Never. This wasn't your fault," I told her. "But I do have to say with absolute confidence that I can trust you and our friendship. That no matter what happens after this, you would never betray me."

"What do you mean, mi'lady?" she asked, taken aback. "How can you ever question that?"

"I know it was you who cursed me last night."

"What," Nebula furrowed her brow in confusion. "Zaira, I would never-"

"I don't know if you've done it intentionally, or as some kind of prank like the ones we played on each other as girls, but-"

"Zaira, I would never use curses to play jokes on you. That's not what the Force is for."

But before she could play that note any longer, I reached into the inner pocket of my cloak and held out the withered Malareaux stems.

Nebula stood dumbfound. "Where did you find those?"

"You tell me," I answered. "You're the only person I know who is able to grow them on Jeotis. And you're the only person I ever remember telling me what a potent love spell you can make out of them using dark side alchemy."

"Zaira, I don't think--"

"The hair you used to tie around it, was it Kenobi's? Is that why I had a dream about him?" I asked her. "Were you trying to bind me to him using dark magic?"

"Mi'lady, I don't know where this is coming from. I would never curse you, and not in that way!"

"And I would never tolerate it," I informed her. "Just like I can hardly stand to be here in front of you, knowing that you're practically a sister to me and that you're lying about this. You're the only one trained in curses like these, and you were the only person in my apartment last night to place it under my sleeping pod."

"I'm sorry you think so little of me, mi'lady," Nebula said. "But despite what you think, I do not practice curses. Not on anyone. And I know very little about Malareaux Roses, which is why I study their uses in my garden. And it's obvious to me that you are greatly misinformed, of course, when it comes to knowing exactly how dark magic works. You don't use Malareaux roses to make a binding love spell. You use equal parts Starflower and diluted purple stingwort. It's basic alchemy, Zaira."

Frustrated by her clear patronization of my little knowledge of the Force, I slammed the bundle of stems into her palm aggressively.

"Then what's this?" I demanded. "And if you didn't leave it, who did?"

I stood waiting, studying her eyes and searching for one hint of doubt or weakness, but I found nothing.

If you can't count on a cyborg for anything else, you can depend on devoted honesty.

"I don't know, mi'lady," Nebula told me. "But I will find out the meaning behind it. I promise you that."

But before we could ponder that question any further, we heard footsteps approaching us from the annex of the viewing deck, and turned to see an aging Weequay approach us, accompained by a baby Kowakian monkey lizard.

"No," he said immediately, before Neb and I could demand to know who he was. "Our deal was for one. They didn't mention anything about another cyborg, and much less, a female one."

"You'll learn your place, Weequay," Nebula stepped forward to confront him, but I held up a hand to halt her.

"Are you the one I am to call master?" I questioned him.

"There's no need for formalities," he answered. "Unfortunately, I am not your master. That is, if you're original one does not default on his rather expensive loan....Or dies before he can pay it back."

I looked at Neb, who looked back at me just as clueless.

"I note your confusion. How rude of me. Allow me to introduce myself," he said, removing his hood to reveal his reptilian face fully. "I am-"

"Hondo Ohnaka?" I finished, surprised.

"So you've heard of me," he grinned, taking a deep, theatric bow. "It is an honor to finally meet the galaxy's most revered queen of diamonds." 


	24. Conflict of Interest

"Afraid I can't say the same, " I answered him, as he dipped back up from his ridiculous bow. "I thought I recognized your stench crawling around here somewhere. Of what do I owe the displeasure, Ohnoko?"

"Is that any way to talk to the Weequay who now holds your life in his hands?"

"My apologies. Let me rephrase myself," I answered, and held him at the point of my petite pistol. "Tell me again about how you and Xan undercut me and how you assume I'll just play along with it?"

"Zaira, wait. I think you should hear him out first," Neb suggested. "He's on our side."

"He's on the side that pays him more. Isn't that right, pirate?"

His Kowakian pet hissed threateningly at me in response, and the Weequay's mouth dipped into a wide, crooked grin.

"My dear, how I've missed you. I'm exceedingly flattered," he remarked. "I would be happy to discuss the circumstances of your captivity, your highness, in as civilized a manner as possible. Put it down. Our interests are one in the same here, and you can trust me to look out for the best of yours. After all, we have such history together."

"That was yesterday's business," I answered him. "Today's a new deal. New planet. New regime. New rules. New opportunities to shoot you if we can't reach some mutual counter-agreement."

Ohnoko bowed again graciously. "A woman after my own heart," he answered dramatically. "But I'm afraid there won't be any counter-agreements between us today, your highness. As I said before, you are not mine to bargain for, which is a most unfortunate circumstance indeed. I would've enjoyed our time together."

"If you're not the one Xan sold me to, then why are you here?"

"To settle my score with your master, of course. I stand here reluctantly as a representative on his behalf," he answered. "As you know, my liege, business calls for strange allies in stranger times. And when it comes to this kind of business, I am more experienced with these particular underworld dealings than my old Jedi friend."

"A Jedi?" I repeated, confused. "My master is a Jedi? How is that possible?"

"Strange, contradicting times," Hondo remarked. "As long as he remains alive, Obi-Wan Kenobi has slaver's rights over you. I am just a messenger. Your fight is with him."

"I don't believe you. Jedi don't own slaves. Kenobi never agree to it."

"Yet here you are," he announced, as if it were some grand reveal. "A high-value prize idly wasting away in his good intentions. It is precisely what a Jedi would do. After all, if I had a queen slave at my disposal, you'd be in the hands of the Hutt's by now, rather than here," he said. "Though it has more than once crossed my mind."

He had a point, and I'd dealt enough in the slaver trade to know the sentiment would be mutual with any other low-life wild space crawler looking to make a profit off of reselling me. Up until this point, I had been given every comfort while waiting on my master to show up, which was unheard of for any slave.

The transaction was, as Ohnoko put it, strange and contradicting.

But a rich Jedi slaver tycoon was the last thing I could pin on Obi-Wan, or any member of his Order. It just didn't make sense, especially given that Obi-Wan had been held prisoner on Zekus during the time Xan sold me.

Something wasn't adding up.

"He couldn't have done it," I stuck to my assumption, though I was finally satisfied enough to lower my blaster pistol. "And if he did, no doubt there's something in it for you?"

"Well, I can't reveal all my best tricks, my dear. Where's the mystery in that? But I can tell you this," he began. "While hiding out on the asteroid, Tor, after a particularly nasty deal with a rogue Imperial captain, I was contacted by Bail Organa of Alderaan, who got his information from a particularly nasty Kayzikan battle droid, who bestowed on my enterprise the most welcome news. Obi-Wan Kenobi is captured on Zekus and in immediate need of assistance. My old esteemed nemesis. And these days, the bounty for a Jedi Master is more profitable than any I could've ever made off my current endeavors on Tor. And so, I made immediate arrangements to smuggle my own ship into Zekus and capture Kenobi for myself."

I side-glanced at Neb, giving her a look that clearly read told-you-so.

"However, Organa presented me with a counter-offer I couldn't resist. The prince paid me in full to smuggle into the planet and rescue you and his Jedi friend. Then, added a bonus for the trouble of escorting you both back to his underground Resistance network. But since the cyborg king knows his market and buyer better than Organa, he doubled his price for you at the current interest rate for royal female slaves, leaving me with no cut out of Organa's contribution. And as we both know, a profitable business isn't run purely by the goodness of hearts. I did not risk my best ship to smuggle into outer rim and break even. That's just bad business, as mother used to say.

"And from the beginning, my interest was Kenobi. You, your highness, were merely extra cargo. And since I paid such a high price in interest for Kenobi's slave girl, my lost profits are now his debt to repay. And until the loan is satisfied, you are his conditionally, and I will immediately reclaim you if he refuses to agree to my contract and pay the difference for you. Which includes certain death. Should he choose to die in the Zekan trials tonight, I will have to sell you in another auction to account for my loss. But he is a Jedi, and his bad business has always been the greater good, which leaves me certain that he will repay his debt in full for something as...exotic as you."

"You surprise me, Ohnoko," I replied, crossing my arms in considerable interest now. "If you really wanted to, you could've easily sold me from under Kenobi and had your credit by now. What's stopping you?"

"When you've dealt with Kenobi as long as I have, you will understand why he is known throughout the galaxy as the silent persuader."

"So you fear him," I smiled tauntingly at him. "An old man like Kenobi?"

"More so a mutual respect," Ohnoko corrected me. "We have our differences that go way back to the good old clone days, yes. A matter of conflict of interests, most times, and a genuine misunderstanding of each other. But had it not been for Kenobi, and Skywalker, and their padawan, Ahsoka Tano, my enterprise on Florrum would have fallen into Separatists' hands a lot sooner. I am sure Kenobi can say the same about my contributions to his interests in the Clone Wars. Therefore, it is my turn to even our score, and to deliver some long-awaited payback to the Galactic Empire for shutting down my most profitable businesses."

"But Kenobi will die, if he stands the trials," Nebula informed Hondo. "You have to know that."

Ohnoko shrugged. "I've held up my end of the deal," he said. "If Kenobi fails to keep his, I will have one Jeotian queen at my disposable, and a credited sum for not having to go through the trouble of rescuing him. I win again. And that is good business."

The rattle of mechanical buzzing approached us from the entrance, reminding us we weren't alone anymore.

An auction droid entered the viewing balcony, carrying Ohnoko's copy of the Game Book in with him. 

"King Xan of the Lohvi is impatient to start the auctions," he announced. "You have 5 minutes to place all final bids on the prisoners."

"Thank you, but I've splurged enough on your highness's hospitality," Ohnoko declined. "I request his permission to leave Zekus and return to Coruscant, as I have immediate matters of Imperial importance to see to on his highness's behalf. As was our arrangement."

The droid nodded coldly, but before he could buzz away again, I was compelled to stop him.

"May I?" I asked, indicating the Game Book in the protocol droid's hands.

The droid looked to Ohnoko for permission, who looked at me suspiciously, but nodded in approval.

I found a seat in his private viewing balcony, and unlocked The Game Book, scanning over the break-down of each prisoner's stats, and the probabilities of each's survival rate after every round.

All numbers were based on the prisoners' strengths and weakness, and were precisely calculated by Zekan mathematicians in order to give the auctioneers numerical confidence when placing a bid on a prisoner. Just estimates. None were set in stone, as the outcome of the trials could change within the margins of probability. 

All to keep the gamblers on their toes.

I swiped through The Game Book, skipping the profiles of the all the other prisoners until I came to the one that everyone in the arena was looking at.

Like stardust catching gravity, the holo-pixels swept across the book until Obi-Wan's image materialized in front of me, and for a moment, I was overcome with the same pang of unnameable warmth and desperation that I felt the night before.

Passion. That same spellbound artificial passion.

I closed my eyes tightly to reset. 

It's just a curse. Damn those dreams. I have got to find a way to overcome this. Somehow.

Only because it tormented me, I tapped his image lightly, and it dissolved into a holo-recording of Obi-Wan waiting quietly on the stage of the arena. The other prisoners around him looked edgy and nervous, but Obi-Wan's breathing was steady. 

He appeared remarkably calm for someone about to be executed.

Too calm. Almost to the point of hollowness.

I couldn't exactly say why I felt it then, but something seemed off about him. Something seemed faux about the whole set-up.

If Jedi were their most dangerous when armed, why had they let him keep his lifesaber, but left the other prisoners unarmed? 

Weren't they afraid he'd try to escape?

Why wasn't he trying to escape? 

Why did he chose to remain passively obedient instead of putting up a fight?

I still couldn't see his face under his cloak, and I felt an unshakable need to find a way to get closer. To match the eyes that haunted me from my dream to the cloaked being's in the arena, and prove that it wasn't another one of Xan's tricks.

And if it was, what had he done with the real Obi-Wan?

"What are you thinking?" Neb asked me, while Ohnoko was distracted by his monkey. "Trust yourself. Whatever it is, it's probably right."

"Obi-Wan isn't here," I voiced my concerns. "I don't know what Xan's done with him. But I know that can't be him."

Neb glanced down at the cloaked figure in the arena in confusion. "How do you know that?"

I glanced back down at the Game Book, my eyelashes fluttering in embarrassment because I knew it'd sound ridiculous to her, especially since I had no proof or way of explaining how I knew. "Just a feeling," I told her quietly. 

"A feeling?"

I glanced around at the thousands of faces in the arena, as if trying to pinpoint one of them as Obi-Wan's real face. Trying to find the pivoting center of why I felt so strongly about it.

"I have to do something," I said to her finally. "He needs more time."

"Who?"

"Obi-Wan," I said, standing to my feet because I couldn't keep myself still anymore. "There's not enough time."

"Zaira, I don't understand where you're-"

The droid attendant buzzed back over to us with three glasses of Jeotian wine in cylinder glasses, and Neb and I quickly shut up, knowing perfectly well that Zekan droids were infamous gossipers, and notorious for eavesdropping.

"Droid," I stopped him again. "I would like to place a bid."

"The auctions have already commenced," the droid replied dryly. "And slaves are strictly forbidden from participating in the royal games."

"Where are you going?" Ohnoko stopped me. "We have a ship to catch."

"Paying back your debt," I told him, as I marched from the balcony and made my way through the corridor to the auctioning deck. "Don't wait."

"Slaves are restricted from wandering the arena without their masters. Return to your seat immediately!" the auction droid repeated. "It is forbidden!"

"You're going to let her do this? This is not part of the plan," Neb said to Ohnoko. "We need to get to the ship. Now!"

"What's business without a little risk," he shrugged indifferently. "The ship will be there. We have time for one more hand in the auctions."

I wasn't listening. I shut everything out. Neb's pleas. The noise of the packed arena. Everything.

All I focused on was the drumming of my heart and that gnawing drive in my core pushing me to the auction deck, swearing that I was right about what I was feeling, but not knowing exactly why. 

Just sensing on some other-worldly level that he needed me. He needed me to forget everything that scared me about this, and make myself the perfect distraction.

I couldn't ever understand what power this stranger had over me that just one whim, one lapse of sanity was enough to make me do anything to save him.

The auction had already started without me, and the highest bids were split between the wayward Wookie and the silent Jedi. 

Already, 20,000 Zekan reyfs were gambled on Obi-Wan's head. With a price so high, even the wealthiest Zekan citizens dropped out of the auction, leaving only Xan's Senator Hodgs and the diamond tycoon, Grif, to outbid each other. Senator Hodgs went for the gold then, forcing Grif into silence by declaring, "I will bid 100,000 reyfs on the Jedi. If Grif can match my price, then to him go the spoils." 

Hodgs knew perfectly well that Grif would not match him at such a price. In fact, Grif did not even know what 100,000 reyfs looked like, and he was forced to step down or face a financial disaster.

"If there are no bids left to challenge 100,000 reyfs, then the grand prize will be awarded to Senator Hodgs in the event of Jedi Kenobi's success in the trials."

"150,000 reyfs," I spoke up. "I will challenge Senator Hodgs with 150,000."

"You have no title here, slave, and as such, no voice unless it is-"

"My master is not familiar with the Zekan trial auctions, and has asked me to bid in his place," I informed him. "He has agreed to back any offer I wish to initiate."

"Very well. 150,000 to the Coruscanti ambassador," the auctioneer announced. 

"Then I will challenge that with 175,000," Senator Hodgs declared. "And if this slave girl cares anything about her masters' holdings, she will humbly stand down."

"200," I went on. "And I'm sorry to disappoint the Senator, but I will not standdown. In fact, I will raise the bet to 225, 000."

"Insolent wench," the senator growled. "I will not tolerate this. The auctions are no place for a woman."

"What bothers you more, senator? That I am a woman, or that I can afford to match any price you put on the Jedi's head?" I asked.

"There is not enough money in Zekus or Coruscant to match your price," the senator shot back. "Fortunately for me, I do not need all the money in Zekus to represent me, as I have invested in economies outside of your dirtball star system. I will top your price with 300,000 and no more."

"300,000 to the Senator Hodgs," the auction commissioner said breathlessly, hardly believing what he was hearing. "Is your master willing to meet his challenge at 325,000?"

I glanced again at Obi-Wan, or rather, the impostor I had suspected was the shell of Obi-Wan.

Wherever he was, if Neb's prophecy about him was right, and saving this Jedi was the key to saving Jeotis in the long run, then Jeotis would have to pay for that privilege, no matter the cost.

"400," I answered. 

"What! She is mad!" I swore I heard Ohnoko roaring from his balcony, but couldn't tell exactly over the onslaught of noise that went on around me, witnessing such an outrageous offer.

"No," Xan finally interfered. "I reject these terms. You can not allow her to suggest such a ridiculous sum. This recklessness ends here and she and her master will be dealt with in the severest of consequences for making a mockery out of our trails."

"With all due respect, your highness, she is completely in her right as a bidder to initiate the challenge," the auction commissioner informed him. "According to number 4682, section 42, article 12 of The Game Book, a bidder may challenge the royal house up to a total of-"

"I am the rulebook, commissioner. I order her to stand down."

"It is a complicated process, yes, and no one has ever bothered to cite the rule," the auction commissioner proceeded, as he was programmed to do so. "But it stands as an official technicality. If there are no other bids, Zaira Constellan's offer stands. To damn the rulebook is to damn Zekan nationalism. We must uphold all order and tradition, because it is the cyborg way. Therefore, I regret that I am forced to honor her request. Zekus accepts your bid, Zaira Constellan. And if the Jedi should lose, you are bound by penalty of death to compensate the royal house."

"Then the first trial will proceed immediately," Xan remarked. "The would-be queen has paid with her life to watch the Jedi die. Give the woman what she wants. Trial One. The first prisoner to claim the Jedi's life will not only be honored as being the first to kill a Jedi in Zekus, but will be granted his unconditional freedom in return for his bravery. Arm them all!"

A old battle horn sounded from Xan's balcony, signifying the start of the trials, while above us, a platform descended from the top of the arena with an arsenal of anti-force weapons laid out for each prisoners' choosing. 

The platform rested directly opposite of the prisoners, on the far side of the arena, giving them at least half a mile to race to it and retrieve their weapon. 

"Annihilate!" Xan ordered.

Given permission to murder their fellow inmates for freedom, the prisoners charged for the platform.

I turned my back to the arena.

I never liked such games.


End file.
